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LIBRARY OF CO 



mi 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE WICKET-GATE. 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 

LITTLE AND WISE; or, Sermons to 

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CHRISTIAN AT THE WICKET GATE. 
W. Gate. Frontiq 



THE 



Wicket-Gate; 



OR, 



SERMONS TO CHILDREN. 



WM. WILBERFORCE NEWTON, 

AUTHOR OF "LITTLE AND WISE." 



"Strive to enter in at the strait gate." — Luke xiii. 24. 



NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 

1879. 



> 



\l*'- 



[1A1 



Teh Lii 

OF CONOUhdS 
WASHINGTON 



Copyright 1875 
By Robert Carter & Brothers. 



Cambridge: 
press OF 

JOHN WILSON AND SON. 



ST. JOHNLAND 
STEREOTYPE FOUNDRY, 
SUFFOLK CO., N. Y. 



PREFACE. 



"The man therefore, looking upon 
Evangelist very carefully, said, 'Whith- 
er must I fly?' Then said Evangelist 
(pointing with his finger over a very 
wide field), 'Do you see yonder wicket- 
gate?' The man said, 'No.' Then said 
the other, ' Do you see yonder shining 
light?' He said, 'I think I do.' Then 
said Evangelist, ' Keep that light in your 
eye, and go up directly thereto, so shalt 
thou see the gate ; at which when thou 
knockest, it shall be told thee what thou 
shalt do.' So I saw in my dream that 



vi Preface. 

the man began to run. Now he had 
not run far from his own door when 
his wife and children, perceiving it, be- 
gan to cry after him to return ; but the 
man put his fingers in his ears and ran 
on, crying, ' Life ! life ! eternal life ! ' So 
he looked not behind him but fled tow- 
ards the middle of the plain." — Pil~ 
grim's Progress 



CONTENTS. 



1. The Wicket-Gate 9 

2. The Evil Magician 43 

3. Lamps, Pitchers, and Trumpets ... 71 

4. Running Disciples 101 

5. Learning to Think 125 

6. Samson's Riddle 153 

7. Running Aground ....... 181 

8. Carriages to Jerusalem 207 

9. The Fourfaced Cherubim — 1. The Face 

of a Lion 237 

10. The Fourfaced Cherubim — 2. The Face 

of an Ox 269 

11. The Fourfaced Cherubim — 3. The Face 

of an Eagle 295 

12. The Fourfaced Cherubim — 4. The Face 

of a Man 321 



%\t m\tit\-§i\t, 



THE WICKET-GATE. 

"Enter ye in at the strait gate." — Matt. vii. 13. 

(3\ T the great Centennial Exposition at Phil- 
(27' adelphia there were a number of little 
turnstile gates, by which people went into 
the grounds. These gates would only admit 
one at a time. Every time a person entered 
the gate clicked and registered the number 
of persons, and in this way, at the end of the 
day, by counting up the sum total of all the 
numbers of the register of the gates, the offi- 
cers in charge knew just how many people 
had been admitted for the day. 

But when the time came for closing the 
gates, the great fog-horn sounded, and then 
wide doors were thrown open on all sides, 
and the people within the grounds flocked 
forth by hundreds and thousands. 



12 The Wicket-Gate. 

People entered at the narrow gate, and 
went out at the broad way. It would have 
been impossible for them to have gone in at 
the wide doors and come out at the narrow 
turnstile gate, one at a time. Each person 
who wanted to go into the grounds had to 
take his turn at the narrow turnstile gate. 
Every one was registered as they went in. 
Every one went in one at a time. 

Now our Lord, in his Sermon upon the 
Mount, told those who were listening to him 
that they must seek to enter in at the strait 
gate, or the narrow gate. The word strait 
here means narrow. We say a person is in 
great straits, or is very much straitened, 
when he is crowded or pinched for money. 
The Straits of Magellan, or the Mediter- 
ranean Straits, are those places where the 
ocean, forcing its way through portions of 
land which lie near to each other, is very 
narrow, or strait, or straitened. What our 
Lord meant, then, by entering in at the nar- 
row gate, or the strait gate, was, getting 
started right for heaven. We must get started 



The Wicket-Gate. 13 

right We must begin in the right way. 
We must enter in at the right gate. And 
the right gate to begin the Christian life 
with, is the strait or narrow gate of obedi- 
ence to the will of God. 

When we go with the crowd, and please 
only ourselves, we are walking in the broad 
way. It is broad because so many people are 
in it, and because most people in the world 
suit their own pleasure and do just what they 
want to do. 

But when we deny ourselves, and give up 
our wishes for the sake of God's will, or the 
happiness of others, then we are entering in 
at the strait gate. It may seem hard and 
narrow, it may crowd us somewhat, but this 
narrow way leads up after all to God, just as 
some narrow mountain path leads after a 
while to a broad summit, where we can see 
all our difficulties below us, and can feel 
so glad that we were not discouraged, but 
pushed boldly on to the top. 

In Bunyan's story of "Pilgrim's Progress" 
Christian is represented as beginning his 



14 The Wicket-Gate. 

journey to heaven by entering in at the 
wicket-gate. Before this he had not been 
considered as fairly on the way to the Celes- 
tial City. When Evangelist told him what 
to do, as you can read in the preface to this 
book, he was tempted out of the way by Mr. 
Worldly Wiseman. Then Christian met his 
old friend and counsellor Evangelist again, 
who put him in the right way, and told him 
not to stop until he had reached the wicket- 
gate before him. After this we read that 
Christian "did address himself to go back, 
and Evangelist, after he had kissed him, 
gave him one smile and bid him God speed: 
So he went on with haste, neither spoke he 
to any man by the way; nor if any man 
asked him, would he vouchsafe them an 
answer. He went like one that was all the 
while treading on forbidden ground, and 
could by no means think himself safe, till 
again he was got into the way which he 
had left to follow Mr. Worldly Wiseman's 
counsel. So, in process of time, Christian 
got up to the gate. Now, over the gate 



The Wicket -Gate. 15 

there was written, 'Knock, and it shall be 
opened unto you.' He knocked, therefore, 
more than once or twice, saying, 

"May I now enter here? wall he within 
Open to sorry me, though I have been 
An undeserving rebel? then shall I 
Not fail to sing his lasting praise on high." 

The wicket-gate in this story means the same 
as the strait gate, or narrow gate, of our 
text. The word wicket comes from a Welsh 
word and means a little gate, or a gate of 
wicker-work, or lattice-work, such as we see 
in gardens, where there are chairs and gates 
and tables made out of pieces of rustic wood. 

The wickets which boys use in playing 
cricket make a little gate, you know, with 
a small bar across the top. When the ball is 
thrown against these and tries to go through 
them, it knocks them down. The gate is so 
narrow that the ball can not enter it. It 
is a very little wicket-gate. 

This entering in at the strait or narrow 
gate then means, as I have said, getting 
started right for heaven. 



16 The Wicket-Gate. 

"Enter ye in at the strait gate," are our 
Saviour's words to all those who wish to 
have eternal life. This means that we must 
begin in the right way, we must get into 
the right path, we must get headed right 
for heaven. 

Have you ever seen an ocean steamer back 
out of her dock and get headed right in 
the stream ? Very often I see this done 
on a Saturday afternoon, when I go down 
Boston harbor with the tug which conveys 
the Cunard steamers out to sea. The steam- 
er backs, slowly and carefully, while all the 
time the tug pulls away at a strong rope 
fastened to the steamer's stern, or puts its 
nose down against the great black iron side 
of the steamer, and roots at it until it has 
pushed it back and swung its stern out of 
the reach of the current, and then, when she 
is headed right, the tug stops all her puffing 
and blowing, and the big steamer gets under 
way and sails grandly down the harbor out 
to sea. 

And it is not enough for us to want to 



The Wicket-Gate. 17 

get started right on our journey through this 
world to heaven. This life is like a great 
journey, and we must not only want to get 
to our journey's end; we must do all we can 
ourselves to get into the right path, and to 
enter at the right gate, just as the steamer 
tries, and the tug tries, and together they 
get headed right for the voyage. 

" Take nothing for granted" is a golden rule 
for all travellers. That is we must see things 
for ourselves, and find out all about our jour- 
ney. We must not depend upon the opin- 
ions of others as to hours and trains. 

I remember two boys, some years ago, in 
Philadelphia, who grew tired of going to 
school and minding their parents. So they 
made up their minds to run away. 

They packed up their clothes, each one for 
himself, in a red silk handkerchief, and put 
their bundles over their shoulders, on a stick, 
in true pilgrim style, and sallied forth from 
the back gate of their father's house, very 
early on the morning of July 4th. They 
chose this day because they thought it was 



18 The Wicket-Gate. 

a good day on which to assert their inde- 
pendence. They thought they would be like 
the American colonies and would strike for 
freedom. So they went out to the West Phil- 
adelphia depot to take the train for Wash- 
ington. It was in the war times, and they 
thought they would go and see President 
Lincoln. They wanted him to give them 
commissions in the army as drummer boys. 
They felt sure he would do this, for they 
had always heard that he was very kind. 
They thought he would invite them to 
dinner at the White House, and would very 
likely take them out for a drive in his own 
carriage. 

So when they arrived at the railway depot 
they saw a train headed south for Baltimore, 
and they got on the rear platform. They 
had no tickets, and as they wanted to save 
what little money they had, they thought 
they would steal a ride to Washington. But 
the conductor found them out an hour after 
the train had started, hanging on to the steps 
on the rear platform. He landed them at 



The Wicket-Gate. 19 

the next place he came to, and lo and be- 
hold ! it was Trenton, New Jersey. They 
were on the train to New York, instead of 
the train to Washington. They were going 
north instead of south ; they had entered 
the wrong train, by the wrong gate, and 
were started all wrong. 

So those boys who wanted to be so inde- 
pendent npon the Fourth of July, and strike 
out for themselves, like the American col- 
onies, had the pleasure of spending their 
money in going home by the steamboat 
on the Delaware Eiver back again to Phil- 
adelphia. And that very night at eight 
o'clock, just fourteen hours after they had 
passed out of their father's back gate, they 
passed in again, and went to bed. And their 
father, who was a very kind and wise man, 
let them have abundant time, for the next 
three days, each one in his own room, to 
meditate upon the great lesson of getting 
started rigid whenever we go on a journey. 

And to this day those boys, who are now 
grown-up men, are very careful when they 



20 The Wicket-Gate. 

want to go to "Washington to be sure and 
not take the train for New York. 

For it is not enough to ivant to get started 
right; we must first find out for ourselves 
that we are right, before we go on our way. 

You know the old motto says, "Be sure 
you're right, then go ahead!" 

"Enter ye in at the strait gate ;" or, as 
our Lord says in another place, "Strive to 
enter in at the strait gate" — the right 
gate. 

Starting right for heaven. This is our sub- 
ject to-day. 

I. 

First of all, then, we must find out what 
this strait gate is. It isn't the way that 
leads up to Mount Sinai, where the Ten 
Commandments were given. It isn't the 
Beautiful Gate of the Temple, where Peter 
and John healed the lame man. It isn't the 
gate that leads into the Church. Our Lord 
himself tells us what this gate is : " Then 



The Wicket-Gate. 21 

said Jesus, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I 
am the door of the sheep. All that ever 
came before me are thieves and robbers : but 
the sheep did not hear them. i~ am the door : 
by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, 
and shall go in and out, and find pasture." 

Again in another place he says, "I am 
the way." 

Many years ago, in Switzerland, there was 
a great battle fought between the Swiss, who 
were trying to be free, and the Austrians, 
who were trying to conquer them. It was 
before the days of gunpowder. The Aus- 
trian knights were clad in steel armor and 
formed themselves into a solid square. This 
was called, in old times, forming a phalanx. 
Whichever way the Swiss patriots tried to 
reach their foes, there was this bristling 
front of spears, through which it was im- 
possible for them to force their way. At 
last one of their number, seeing the utter 
uselessness of attempting to fight in this 
way, seized a dozen of the Austrian spear- 
points, and planting them in his own breast, 



22 The Wicket-Gate. 

exclaimed — "Make way for liberty." His 
companions rushed in over his dead body, 
and got inside the hollow square of Aus- 
trian knights and utterly routed them. This 
Swiss hero was named Arnold Winkelreid, 
and the battle is known in history as the 
battle of Sempach. Perhaps some of you 
may remember a piece which is often spoken 
on declamation days at school. It begins in 
this way: 

" 'Make way for liberty!' he cried. 
'Make way for liberty,' and died." 

That was a very narrow way into the Aus- 
trian phalanx over the dead body of Arnold 
Winkelreid. When the sun set that day it 
set upon the happy and rejoicing Swiss, who 
were so glad to be free once more; but it 
also set upon the dead body of the one who 
died to make them free. He opened a way 
of escape for them from the tyranny of their 
enemies. But it was a very strait or nar- 
row way: it cost him his life to make his 
country free. 



The Wicket-Gate. 23 

And we sing sometimes in the Te Deum, 
or Chant of Praise to God, 

"When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 

Some time ago, here in Boston, there was 
a man who called himself a Christian min- 
ister, who said one day, from the pulpit, that 
it was time this idea of entering heaven by 
a trap -door covered with blood was done 
away with ! What a dreadful thing to say ! 
How else can we be saved but by the life 
and death of Jesus Christ? If there had 
been any other way of being saved would 
it not have been told us ? If the law given 
upon Mount Sinai could have saved us, if the 
prophets or the apostles could have saved us, 
would not that have been enough? Where 
would have been the need of Christ? 

But, my dear children, there are no words 
truer than those of that lovely hymn we 
sometimes sing. They are the very essence 
of the Gospel — the good news brought to 
us by Jesus Christ. 



24 The Wicket-Gate. 

" There is a green hill far away 
Without a city wall, 
Where the dear Lord was crucified, 
Who died to save us all. 

" We may not know, we can not tell, 
What pains he had to bear; 
But we believe it was for us 
He hung and suffered there. 

" He died that we might be forgiven, 
He died to make us good, 
That we might go at last to heaven, 
Saved by his precious blood. 

" There was no other good enough 
To pay the price of sin, 
He only could unlock the gate 
Of heaven, and let us in. 

" Oh dearly, dearly has he loved, 
And we must love him, too, 
And trust in his redeeming blood, 
And try his works to do ! " 

II. 

Secondly, we must find out why this gate 
is so narrow. Why must we enter in at this 
narrow gate? Why must it be so strait? 



The Wicket-Gate. 25 

"Enter ye in at the strait gate" — are our 
Lord's words. 

My dear children, even Jesus found this 
way of submission to the will of God a 
strait or narrow way. Don't you remember 
he cried out in the Garden of Gethsemane, 
when he was all alone, and the disciples 
were asleep, and the glancing lights of Ju- 
das and the Eoman soldiers were seen in the 
distance, coming along the road over the 
brook Kedron, "Abba, Father, all things are 
possible unto thee ; take away this cup from 
me : nevertheless, not what I will, but what 
thou wilt." 

It is always a hard or narrow way when 
we have to give up our own wills for the 
sake of another. This was why our Lord 
said it was so hard for a rich man to enter 
into the kingdom of heaven. It was hard 
for him to crowd down his will and enter 
in at the narrow entrance — the wicket-gate 
of obedience to God's will. 

Last summer, when I was in London, I 
went to the great Zoological Gardens, and 



26 The Wicket-Gate. 

saw all the animals there. There were a 
lot of young elephants bathing in a pond. 
Presently the keeper ordered them out and 
marched them into the stable for the night. 
But there was one elephant which ran off 
by himself. He didn't want to go to bed yet. 
So he ran down the garden path, and all the 
people got out of his way. But presently he 
came to one of these same turnstile gates, 
such as they had at the Centennial Exposi- 
tion. There the fellow stuck. He moved his 
head and trunk and his forelegs, and tried 
every way he could to get through the gate. 
But it was of no use : he couldn't crowd him- 
self down. He couldn't manage it at all. 
He was like a camel going through the eye 
of a needle. And his keeper caught him and 
paddled him back with a long wooden pad- 
dle, on a trot home, while the poor elephant 
who would have his own way, kept his trunk 
up in the air and snorted and bellowed like 
a puppy dog when you spank him. 

Well ! we are all very much like this ele- 
phant at the gate. When we start out to 



The Wicket-Gate. 27 

have our own way at the beginning, though 
it may seem broad, it's very hard to get 
through the narrow gate at the other end of 
the journey. 

Look at Benedict Arnold! In the begin- 
ning of the Eevolutionary War he was a 
brave and true soldier. He fought in Can- 
ada, and had a good reputation for faith- 
fulness and bravery. But, after awhile, he 
grew tired of his country's service. He 
thought he had not been treated rightly. 
He had his feelings hurt. He was jealous 
of attentions shown to his fellow-officers. 
His pride was touched. He grew very big 
in his own eyes, and presently he found that 
the path of obedience to General Washing- 
ton, and those in authority, was becoming 
very strait or narrow. It crowded him. He 
was like Balaam on the ass, driven to the 
wall by the angel which blocked his way. 
There wasn't room enough for three in the 
road at the same time. He was like the ele- 
phant trying to crowd through the turnstile. 

So you all know what he did ! He jumped 



28 The Wicket-Gate. 

over the wall on the narrow way of obedi- 
ence to his country, and landed ont in the 
broad way of disobedience, or of pleasing 
himself. He betrayed the forts on the Hud- 
son, and fled in a boat to the British sloop- 
of-war Vulture, and became a British officer. 
But Washington arrived just in time to save 
the Highland forts, and nothing came, after 
all, of Arnold's treachery, save the death of 
poor Major Andre, who was hung as a spy. 
The way of his country's service was too 
narrow a way for Arnold, and so he be- 
came a traitor to his country, merely to 
please himself and have his own wishes 
gratified. 

There was a country boarding-school once 
which was beautifully situated in the town. 
There were high walls all around the gar- 
den. But on one side the house joined on 
to the wall, so that from the windows one 
could see right down into the street below. 

One week before Christmas, in a certain 
year, the boys saw written up in the large 
school-room these words, on a scroll: 



The Wicket-Gate. 29 



No Christmas Pies, 
No Frosted Cakes, 

No "Weeping Eyes, 
No Pains or Aches. 



Nobody could find out what this notice 
meant, until the day before the school closed 
for the term. Then the principal explained 
this motto. He told the boys that they 
could eat as many Christmas cakes and pies 
as they wanted to at home, but that they 
must not bring these things back with them 
in their trunks; since they made themselves 
ill with eating them, and then their parents 
blamed the teachers. So the boys promised, 
all but one of them, that they would try to 
do what the teacher wanted. 

When the school opened again, after the 
Christmas holidays, the principal told the 



30 The Wicket-Gate. 

boys that he was sorry to say that he had 
some suspicions that they had not all com- 
plied with this new rule. He said that in 
order to be sure about this, two of the tutors 
would now examine their trunks, and mark 
them off in the way the custom-house offi- 
cers did with the trunks of passengers from 
Europe. 

There was one boy, named Ernest, who 
had told the other boys the day the school 
broke up that he meant to bring back a 
frosted plum-cake as large as a bucket. He 
said he wasn't going to mind any such ridic- 
ulous rule. 

When he heard the principal say that the 
tutors were coming around to examine the 
baggage, he flew up into his room, locked 
the door, opened his trunk, seized his pre- 
cious frosted cake and then was wild to 

know what to do with it. He couldn't hide 
it in the closet, or under the bed ; it wouldn't 
go into his bureau drawer; what was he to 
do? He heard the tutors coming; in a mo- 
ment more they would be at his door. He 



The Wicket-Gate. 31 

flew to the window and looked out into the 
road. It was dark, but he knew there were 
some tall bushes growing up by the wall. 
" Rat-a-tat-tat," went the tutors at the door: 
down went the cake into the bushes! 

"Come in," said Ernest, "I was changing 
my clothes." 

Two sins in five minutes — deceiving, and 
then lying about it. That is the way in 
which one sin always leads into another. 
The tutors came in and examined Ernest's 
trunk and valise, and marked them with a 
big letter P, for "passed" and then went 
away. That night Ernest kept looking out 
of the window to see if he could find out any 
thing about his cake ; and then he could not 
go to sleep — for thinking about it. 

Early in the morning, as soon as it was 
light, he looked out of the window again. 
There he saw the big yellow parcel, tied up 
with the four pieces of red tape, just as he 
had thrown it down. It wasn't broken; it 
had lodged in the bushes. Now how was he 
to get it up ? He mustn't make a noise about 



32 The Wicket-Gate. 

it, and he must get it up in his room before 
any of the school were stirring. Presently 
he saw a boy driving some cows to the pas- 
ture. Instantly he got out his fishing-line, 
tied the end of it on to his kite cord, and put 
on the fishhook a piece of white paper, on 
which was printed these words: 



HOOK THAT THERE BUNDLE ONTO 
THIS LINE AND I'LL GIVE YOU A 
SILVER QUARTER. 



Ernest printed this message, for fear the 
boy might not be able to read it. The boy 
took it up, spelled it out, looked around for 
the bundle, while Ernest all this time was 
making signs to him, and pointing out where 
the cake was lying. Presently the boy found 
the cake and hitched it on to the string ; 
Ernest pulled it up to his fourth-story win- 
dow, just as if it had been a big blue-fish he 
was landing, and then wrapped up a silver 



The Wicket-Gate. 33 

quarter in a piece of paper, and threw it out 
to the boy. 

So Ernest got his cake again. What was 
he to do next? Why, he must eat it; he 
must eat it all alone, for fear some of the 
boys would tell on him; and he must eat it 
up quickly, for fear the chambermaid or some 
one would find out that he had been eating 
a cake. So he began to stuff himself with 
this rich, black plum-cake. He ate it before 
breakfast and after breakfast, before dinner 
and after dinner, before supper and after 
supper, before he went to bed and after he 
was in bed. He wished now that his cake 
was smaller. He could not leave the crumbs 
around, he could not give it away, he could 
not hide it. The second night after eating 
the cake he was taken ill, and the doctor 
said he had been eating something that dis- 
agreed with him. Ernest would not tell 
w r hat it was, but before very long the cake 
told the story itself, and the whole truth 
came out. Out of sixty-five boys Ernest was 
the only one who wouldn't walk in the nar- 



34 The Wicket-Gate. 

row way of obedience to the rules of the 
school, and his sin found him out and told 
on him, as sin always does. 

It is true what one has said on this sub- 
ject: "If a man commits a murder, it seems 
as if nature sent a snow-storm on purpose, 
that his footsteps may be tracked." 

Ernest was dismissed from the school for 
disobedience. He went on in the broad way 
of doing just what he wanted, going on from 
bad to worse, untill at last he joined some 
counterfeiters, and was arrested for forging 
a note, and served out his days in a peni- 
tentiary. And all this was because he was 
not willing to enter in at the strait gate of 
obedience. Truly does our Lord warn us 
about the power of our own evil hearts, 
when he said "Strive" — that is: try hard, 
try many times, again and again — "to enter 
in at the strait gate." 

III. 

And now, lastly. We are to find out why 
it is that we must enter in at this gate. Why 



The Wicket-Gate. 35 

can we not go to heaven by the broad way 
of sin? Why can't we go there by doing 
just as we please? Why must we enter in 
at this narrow gate? 

Why did the angels rebel in heaven? 
Why did Adam sin in the garden? Why 
are our jails and penitentiaries filled to-day? 
Simply because it is so very hard to enter in 
at this narrow gate. It is so much easier to 
go with the crowd and do just as we want 
to do. 

But just as surely as we must take the 
train south when we want to go south, and 
not the cars for the north when we want to 
go south, just so surely must we enter in at 
the strait gate of obedience to Jesus Christ, 
if we want to get started right for heaven! 
We must be like Christian coming up to the 
wicket-gate; we can not be fairly on our 
way to God, until we have put ourselves in 
the path which he has told us will lead to 
him. 

There was a poor fellow in the slums of 
London who used to love to go to a certain 



36 The Wicket-Gate. 

dog-pit with his pet dog Tiger. The mans' 
name was Jonas Higgins. He was at times 
a good-hearted kind of man, but when a new 
dog was brought into the pit to fight Tiger, 
Jonas would bet his money on his dog, and 
then after the betting would come the drink- 
ing, and Jonas would go home as drunk as 
a fiddler. Tiger was a great fighter; one 
ear was gone, his upper lip was all torn 
away and showed his great white teeth, 
one eye was out, and his tail had been 
bitten off. All he had left was a bit of 
a stump, which he wagged like a drum- 
major's baton ! Tiger was a good, kind- 
hearted dog. It was only in the dog-pit, 
when he was in his professional character 
as a fighter, that he was so fierce. He 
loved Jonas, and Jonas loved him with all 
the poor remains of his heart. Tiger came 
first in the love of Jonas, and then the wife 
and children came next. Jonas was known 
as "Tiger's man." Tiger was never spoken 
of as Jonas' dog. Well, it came to pass that 
right in the midst of this wretched place 



The Wicket-Gate. 37 

where Jonas and Tiger lived together, a 
mission was established. The children of 
Jonas went to the school, and Jonas went 
to church, and before long Jonas became a 
changed man. Tiger was kept chained to 
his kennel; Jonas stopped drinking, and 
didn't go to the fighting pit any more. 
The home began to look clean and bright, 
and the poor wife was as happy as a queen. 
This went on for six months, when one Sun- 
day the minister missed Jonas in church. 
After service the wife waited to tell the sad 
story. Jonas had fallen ! His evil compan- 
ions had tried in vain to tempt him back to 
the pit. At last they advertised that there 
would be a great dog-fight there, and that 
a big Scotch dog from away up at the north 
of Scotland would fight. It was said that 
this dog could whip any dog in England, 
since he had whipped Tiger. This was a 
lie. This was too much for Jonas. He had 
taken Tiger from his kennel and had gone 
to the pit. Tiger nearly killed the Scotch 
dog;, and Jonas came home drunk. The 



38 The Wicket-Gate. 

minister went to see Jonas. He was very 
sorry for what he had done and promised 
to do better and he did. He went right 
back to his good ways and went steadily 
on for six months more. Then he fell again. 
This time it* was a Dutch dog, from Hol- 
land, which it was advertised could whip 
Tiger. Again Jonas carried his dog to the 
pit, again Tiger whipped the other dog, and 
again Jonas came home drunk. This time 
he had the delirium tremens and was raving ! 

When he got well, the minister went to 
see him. He warned Jonas about this ter- 
rible temptation, and told him he must part 
from Tiger, or part from his Lord. He told 
him he could not serve two masters : that he 
must either deny his Lord, or deny the dog. 

"Now," said he, "mark my words, Jonas. 
Take Tiger this very night, sew him up in 
a meal bag, and run with him to London 
bridge and throw him over, or else give up 
all hope of serving Christ any longer." 

This was very hard for Jonas. He went 
out in the back yard to look at old Tiger. 



The Wicket-Gate. 39 

'■ Poor old fellow," said Jonas. 

"Don't stop!" cried the minister. 

"Dear old dog," said Jonas. 

" In with him ! " said the minister. 

It seemed as if that minister never conld 
get Tiger into the bag. His head would be 
out, or his stumpy tail would be out, as he 
backed his way out ; and if Jonas hadn't kept 
talking kindly to him he would have killed 
the minister. 

At last they got Tiger in. Then Jonas 
began to cry. He couldn't do it. 

"You must," said the minister. 

" I can't," replied Jonas. 

"Yes you can," the minister answered. 
"Now then, there he is" — and lifting up the 
bundle — " there he is on your shoulder — now 
run!" 

So Jonas ran, and the minister ran. Jonas 
cried all the way, and when he got onto the 
bridge he wanted to compromise. 

" Let me sell him," said Jonas, " or let me 
give him away." 

"No, sir!" said his friend, "you'll never 



40 The Wicket-Gate. 

be safe while that dog is alive! So over 
with him — now then — when I say three over 
he goes — 

" One ! 

"Two!! 

"Three!!!" 
What a struggle for poor Jonas ! No one 
knew what it cost him, but he heard the 
splash in the water and ran home, crying 
like a child returning from a funeral ! Part- 
ing from Tiger almost broke his heart, but 
it took the temptation away from him and 
saved his soul! 

Now I call that — throwing ones sin over- 
hoard. It was indeed casting his sin behind 
his back, when Jonas consented to make 
such a sacrifice for the sake of his soul. 
Tiger was dearer to that poor, degraded sin- 
ner than any thing else in the world, and 
yet he parted from Tiger at the last, hard as 
it was to do so, when he felt that Tiger stood 
between his soul and his Saviour. 

It was necessary for that man to enter in 
at a very narrow gate of sacrifice and obedi- 



The Wicket-Gate. 41 

ence, if lie wished to be saved. And he was 
strong enough to do it. 

And so must we all, my dear children, give 
up our darling sins, and our pet habits, if 
they are in the way of our serving Christ. 

We must head right for the kingdom of 
heaven if we are in earnest; and if there is 
any thing which is in our way, we must be 
willing to part from it, no matter what it 
may cost us. 

Jesus said to cast away our eyes, or to cut 
off our arms, if they hindered us from enter- 
ing into the kingdom of heaven. 

He won for us eternal life by entering in 
at the strait gate of his Heavenly Father's 
will; and we must follow in his footsteps, for 
he himself has told us that the disciple can 
not be above his Master! 



II. 



%\t $HI Hag in a it. 



THE EVIL MAGICIAN. 

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; 
that put darkness for light, and light for darkness ; that 
put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter ! " — Isaiah v, 20. 

£^HIS sermon is about the evil magician 
^/ and his hocus-pocus. Do you know 
what that word hocus-pocus means ? If you 
do not, let us try and find it out. 

Here we are, then, all of us, in a magi- 
cian's room. There is the curtain, and there 
are the lights. Presently the bell rings, the 
curtain rolls back, and the magician comes 
forward upon the stage with a wand or rod 
in his hand, and begins to show us his won- 
ders. Boys all love these tricks of magic, 
and there is a time in our history when we 
like to have magician's boxes, and do magi- 
cian's tricks ourselves. 

You all know what these tricks are. There 
is the wonderful egg-bag, and the hat out 



46 The Wicket-Gate. 

of which the flowers come; and there are 
the canary-birds, which are killed and made 
alive again ; and there are the bowls of gold- 
fish, which change places from one side of 
the room to the other. Then there are the 
wonders of second-sight, by which certain 
persons can be blindfolded, and yet can de- 
scribe every article which is held up by 
another, though the eyelids are closed and 
the eyes are bandaged. Then there is the 
Indian basket trick, where a man gets into 
a basket and is locked down, and just when 
a second person is about to run a sword in 
the basket and apparently kill him, — when 
every one is breathless with astonishment 
and fear, — lo and behold! the man whom 
every one supposed to be in the basket is 
out in the hall, calling out, "What are you 
going to do?" 

Now this whole world of magic is a won- 
derful world. And this word "hocus-pocus" 
is the old magical word which used to be 
spoken when any great trick was to be per- 
formed, or any great wonder was to be 



The Evil Magician. 47 

wrought. The magician would wave his 
wand over the place where the trick was to 
be made, and would make a long pow-pow, 
and say, " Hocus-pocus ! hocus-pocus ! " and 
in this way it came to pass that the word 
hocus-pocus was used for any thing which 
is intended to deceive us, or throw us off 
our guard, or play a trick upon us. Some 
people have said that this word comes from 
the Latin words " Hoc est corpus" — which are 
the words the priest uses in the Roman Cath- 
olic Church, at the altar, when the bread 
is declared to be the body of our Lord; 
when, according to their belief, this wonder- 
ful change takes place. 

But, however this may be, we know that 
it is^a very old word, and that the entire 
world of magic is a very old world. Look 
at the Indian jugglers, away off in India. 
For ages and ages they have performed their 
tricks, and they are perhaps the most won- 
derful tricks that the world has ever seen. 
These magicians don't require any stage, or 
lights, or trap-doors, or side scenery. They 



48 The Wicket-Gate. 

perform right on the grass, or on the sand, 
or wherever they may happen to be. I once 
heard a missionary from India, the Kev. Dr. 
Scudder, tell about these Indian magicians, 
. and he said that in one of their performances 
they would take a little Indian girl, and lock 
her up in a basket, and instantly run a sword 
through the basket, in and out and every 
way, and that he heard her scream and saw 
the blood flow out of the basket, when — all 
of a sudden — ever so far back of the ring 
of people looking on, they heard a merry 
shout of laughter, and there stood the very 
little girl whom they supposed was dead. 
And then there are the Chinese and Japan- 
ese jugglers. They do the most wonderful 
things you can imagine. If you have never 
seen them there is no use in attempting to 
describe them. They throw knives at one 
another against a board, and make a rude 
image of a , man out of the knives they 
throw that stick against this board. And 
they roll big barrels on their feet, and hold 
ladders on their chins, and men run up and 



The Evil Magician. 49 

down on these ladders. There used to be a 
company of these Japanese jugglers in the 
United States, with a little boy called "All- 
right." When he would do these dreadful 
things, and people would hold their breath 
and shut their eyes for fear of seeing him 
fall down and be killed, he would call out, 
in a shrill voice, after he had jumped, or 
got on his feet again, or landed on a rope, 
"All — right;" for this was all the English 
he knew; and so he was called little "All- 
right." 

And then, too, we read about magicians 
in the Bible. The eastern countries used to 
be filled with them. We read about Moses, 
in the book of Exodus, having to deal with 
the Egyptian magicians who hung about 
Pharoah's court. When he went in before 
the king to show his signs and wonders, 
in order to induce him to let the Israelites 
go free, these magicians came up also and 
performed their tricks. When Aaron threw 
down his rod before the king and it became 
a serpent, we are told that the Egyptian ma- 
4 



50 The Wicket-Gate. 

gicians and sorcerers threw their rods down, 
and that they too became serpents. In St. 
Paul's second epistle to Timothy he speaks 
of certain men who were like "Jannes and 
Jambres," who withstood Moses. No doubt 
these were the names of some of these Egyp- 
tian magicians. 

Then, further on in the history of the Is- 
raelites, we come across Baalam, who was a 
prophet and a great magician, whom Balak 
the king of Moab paid to curse the Israelites 
for his sake. 

And we know that King Saul went, at 
last, the night before he died, to the cave 
of the witch of Endor, and King Manasseh 
consulted the wizards; and King Josiah ban- 
ished them ; so that all through the Old Tes- 
tament we come across these magicians, who 
performed their tricks and deceived the peo- 
ple. We know, too, that Joseph before Pha- 
roah, and Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar, in- 
terpreted the dreams which the astrologers 
and wise men were not able to do. And 
throughout the world's history these sooth- 



The Evil Magician. 51 

sayers and magicians have appeared from 
time to time to deceive people. Two hun- 
dred years ago people believed in witches, 
and many poor old women in England, and 
here in New England at Salem, were hung 
and burned as witches. And to this day 
there are gypsies who pretend to be able to 
tell fortunes, and magicians who perform 
wonderful tricks ; only now we don't believe 
that they have any supernatural power ; and 
though we may not be able to understand 
how they do these wonders, we know that 
they deceive us in some way, by what is 
called "sleight of hand." 

And now we come to the subject of our 
sermon. It is this: the Evil Magician. 

Do not these words of our text sound just 
like some great magician's tricks, the putting 
of one thing in the place of another, and then 
the "presto-change" of some wizard? 

These are the words: "Woe unto them 
that call evil good, and good evil; that 
put darkness for light, and light for dark- 



52 The Wicket-Gate. 

ness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet 
for bitter ! " 

Here then we have two great facts, and 
two great temptations. Let us take them 
in their order. 

I. 

And the first fact is this: There is a real 
world. We all know the difference between 
a real thing and an imitation of it. Here is 
a beautiful flower right out from the garden. 
It is a real flower, it has a rich fragrance, 
and we know that it is real. Here, on the 
other hand, is a wax flower or a feather 
flower. It is very beautiful perhaps, but it 
is not real; it is a false flower, only a beau- 
tiful imitation of a flower. 

A great many hundred years ago, in Greece, 
there were three great painters. At last it 
was proposed that they should have an ex- 
hibition of their paintings, and that certain 
judges should decide which was the best of 
the three. After two of the painters had 
shown their works, they all came to see the 



The Evil Magician. 53 

painting of the third artist. At last, when 
they had waited for a long time before the 
curtain, and were wondering why it did not 
rise, they all cried out — 

"Up with your curtain and show us the 
picture; don't keep us waiting here." 

"That curtain," replied the artist, "is the 
only painting I have to show you." 

The picture was so much like reality that 
the judges were deceived; they thought the 
false curtain — the merely painted curtain — 
was the real curtain. Now, my dear chil- 
dren, you know very well what this real 
world is in which you live. 

You may not be able to define a tree, or 
a house, or a rock, or a horse, or a pond of 
water, but you know them when you see 
them. You can touch them all, and can say, 
"this is real, I have touched it; I know that 
it is real." 

Why that was what St. Thomas tried to do 
with Jesus after the resurrection. He could 
scarcely believe that it was Jesus who was 
speaking to him. It all seemed too good to 



54 The Wicket-Gate. 

be true. He said, " Except I shall see in his 
hands the print of the nails, and put my 
finger into the print of the nails, and thrust 
my hand into his side, I will not believe." 
That is, St. Thomas would not believe it was 
Jesus who was said to have come from the 
grave again, until he should touch his Lord 
and find out for himself that he really and 
truly was alive. And just as we know there 
is a real world around us by touching and 
seeing and feeling it, so we know there is a 
real world of right and wrong within us, and 
that it is always wicked to mix these up, as 
the magician does when he deceives us with 
his hocus-pocus; and that it is always sinful 
to put evil for good, or sweet for bitter, or 
darkness for light. 

And this brings us to the other fact of our 
subject. And that fact is this: 



II. 



Secondly : There is a false world. There 
are many things in the world which look as 



The Evil Magician. 55 

if they were real things, but are after all 
only illusions and deceits. 

Some of the wonderful tricks of the magi- 
cians and wizards we were talking about a 
little while ago are called illusions, because 
they deceive us. There used to be a trick 
about a Sphynx's head, as it was called, 
which was an illusion. A man's head ap- 
peared on a cushion, and opened its eyes and 
mouth, and made all sorts of faces, and there 
was no body to it at all. It was only a head 
apparently cut off from the body, which did 
all this talk. But then we know the body 
must have been hidden by a looking-glass, 
or by some cover, and that people were de- 
ceived in some way by their senses. 

There are very many things in the world, 
my dear children, which look real, but which 
are only, after all, imitations, and are false. 
A will-o'-the-wisp, for instance, is a false 
light, which often shines over marshy places 
and tangled swamps. Sometimes lonely trav- 
ellers are deceived in the night by it, and 
follow on and on after it, hoping that they 



56 The Wicket-Gate. 

will reach at last this light, which seems to 
come from some house, while they are only 
trying to catch a shining vapor which goes 
before them all the time. 

A mirage is another of these false things 
in the world. Sometimes on the sea-shore, 
or on the sandy plains of the desert, when 
the atmosphere is in a very clear state, some 
far-off trees, or rocks, or the houses of a dis- 
tant city, seem to be enlarged and brought 
near; and sometimes rocks and trees and 
houses and steeples are reflected up in the 
sky, as if they were upside down. Many a 
time, at Eye Beach, I have seen the Isle of 
Shoals in a state of mirage ; and very often, 
at Narragansett Pier, where I have writ- 
ten most of these sermons, I have looked 
over the water to Newport, and it has 
seemed like a fairy city reaching up into 
the sky, with all sorts of strange appear- 
ances about it. 

There is one place in the Hartz mountains, 
in Germany, where travellers can go and 
stand on a certain mountain called The 



The Evil Magician. 57 

Brocken, and can see their shadows reflected 
afar off in the morning sunlight, where they 
look like immense, great giants — something 
like the Titans of the old fables. 

Now all these things in the world look as 
if they were real, but there is a trick about 
them in some way; they are illusions; they 
are false appearances. And just in this same 
way there is a false world within us. The 
right, the true, and the good come from 
God. "He is light, and in him is no dark- 
ness at all." St. John says in one place, 
speaking of these very falsities, or illusions, 
which were abroad in his day, and which 
were deceiving his converts, "Little children, 
keep yourselves from idols." That word idol 
means a false appearance, a deception; an 
image of God or of truth, not God or the 
truth itself. Our Lord, you remember, told 
us that Satan was the author, or the father, 
of all that was false and deceitful. "He is 
a liar, and the father of it," said Jesus. 
"He abode not in the truth, because there 
is no truth in him." He it was who brought 



58 The Wicket-Gate. 

sin and falsehood into the world. He it was 
who said to Eve, " Thou shalfc not surely 
die," when God had said, "Thou shalt die." 
He made Eve believe that he was right, and 
that God was wrong. He made her think 
that the false world of deceit was the real 
world of truth, and that the real world of 
truth was only a false world. He was the 
first person who invented a lie. He was the 
evil magician who said, "Now I'll deceive 
the world, I'll trick them with my lies." 
He was the author and the inventor of this 
terrible change: this substituting the false 
world for the real world, this putting of 
evil in the place of good, and darkness in 
the place of light, and bitter in the place 
of sweet. 

So now that we have discovered that there 
are these two worlds, — the real world of 
nature and the false world of nature, — and 
have found out that these two worlds are 
also reflected in our own souls, so that we 
can tell by our conscience, evil from good, 
and light from darkness, we come to the 



The Evil Magician. 59 

two great temptations which are brought to 
bear upon us all. 

I. 

The first temptation is when the devil tries 
to make us believe that the false world is the 
real world. 

See how hard he strove with Eve. Where- 
ever God had said "Thou shall," he said* 
"Thou shalt not"; and wherever God had 
said "Thou shall not," he deceived her with 
the words "Thou mayest." 

Now, my dear children, for myself, I be- 
lieve that it is this great Father of Lies 
going about, as St. Peter says, like "a roar- 
ing lion seeking whom he may devour," who 
makes it so hard for people to obey God and 
do right. Here is God's word from heaven ; 
here is Jesus Christ, once in the world to 
save it; here is the Christian Church, the 
very sheepfold our Saviour built himself ; 
here are the records of God in human his- 
tory, and the marks of the Creator in the 
rocks, and the touches of the Holy Spirit of 



60 The Wicket-Gate. 

God in our spirits, just as the breath of a 
player is heard and felt through a flute ; here 
are the promises of the Bible, and the com- 
mands which Christ himself has given; and 
yet, in the face of all this truth, Satan, the 
Father of Lies, comes to us men, women, 
and children, through our evil thoughts, and 
says, " Tush ! tush ! it's all a lie. There is no 
God. Eat and drink, for to-morrow you die." 

Now isn't all this just like the magician 
who says, "Now you see something, and now 
you don't. Hocus - pocus ! Presto - change ! 
Every thing is changed." 

Where does all this doubt about God come 
from? Where does sin come from? How 
is it that this world is so very evil? Why 
is it so hard to do right and to keep from 
doing wrong? Ah, my dear children, these 
questions have perplexed the bravest souls in 
the world's history. Many men have won- 
dered and questioned and doubted, and have 
tried in every way to find out an answer. 
But there is only one answer, and it is this : 
there is a lower world of sin and darkness; 



The Evil Magician. 61 

how it has come we know not, but from that 
dark world of deceit and evil, sin. like some 
contagious disease, has arisen, and our na- 
tures are set on fire with it. We get the 
habit of lying and deceiving from him who 
is the Father of Lies. He is the great se- 
ducer or destroyer of souls. He makes men 
believe that the false world is the real world, 
and the real world is the false world. As 
St. Paul says, in one place, through his 
power men are given to believe a delu- 
sion. In Bunyan's story of " Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress," you remember, he is called Apollyon 
the destroyer. When Christian came into 
the Valley of the Shadow of Death, or, in 
other words, when any of us are overcome 
by our doubts and fears, then Satan, or 
Apollyon, comes to destroy that Christian 
altogether. If we can only be influenced 
by the devil to give up our faith in God, 
and to do just as we want, and never think 
of the future world, or of the judgment to 
come, then he has performed his tricks in 
our hearts just as he wants to do, and we 



62 The Wicket-Gate. 

make this world every thing, and "jump the 
world to come." 

Evil takes the place of good, darkness 
takes the place of light, bitterness takes 
the place of sweetness; and God writes out 
with his own hand, just as the man's hand 
appeared before the frightened Babylonian 
king and wrote his doom, that black and 
heavy word — woe! 

Woe to him who confounds right and 
wrong ! woe to him who changes truth 
into falsehood! woe to him who turns good 
living into evil living! 

II. 

And then there comes the second tempta- 
tion, when we are led to believe that the real 
world is the false world. 

Some years ago, in England, there was a 
great actor named David Garrick. People 
crowded to see him act; he made every 
thing seem so real. Men and women would 
cry over the sorrows that he seemed to have 
when he acted upon the stage, and would 



The Evil Magician. 63 

listen to every word lie said and watch every 
thing he did. 

One day a minister, who knew him very 
well, said to him, "Garrick, how is it that 
people go to see you play at the theatre, 
and won't come to hear me read the Bible 
and preach ? " 

Garrick was silent a moment, and then 
said: "Do you want me to tell you what I 
think is the true reason ? " 

"Yes," replied the minister, "that is just 
what I want." 

"Well," said Garrick, "you have to do 
with real things, and I have to do with im- 
aginary things. But you, by your unreality, 
make the people think that your real things 
are imaginary things, while I throw myself 
into the play, and make the people think 
that my imaginary things are real things." 

There was the whole matter. The minis- 
ter wasn't real enough. The people didn't 
believe in him, because he didn't seem to 
believe himself in what he was preaching. 

Now I know, my dear children, how hard 



64 The Wicket-Gate. 

it is always to believe those things which 
we do not see, but which are nevertheless 
real and true. We are caught by lies; we 
are taken by surprise every now and then. 
Look at Simon Peter in Pilate's Hall. All 
of a sudden a great temptation was sprung 
upon him, and his Master and his words 
weren't real enough to him, just at that mo- 
ment, to save him from tumbling down into 
falsehood and denial. All his old faith went 
in a moment; it all seemed unreal. The 
servant-maid and the soldiers seemed to be 
the real world, and his Jesus Christ, his old 
Lord and Master, seemed to be unreal; and 
so he fell. 

And in this same way we fall into temp- 
tation when it comes upon us. We forget 
about the inner world in which God is, and 
see only the outer world where man is; and 
so God's real world is forgotten in the pres- 
ence of the world that now is, which seems 
to us the only real world. 

You know we live on the surface of the 
earth. We dig down and come to water and 



The Evil Magician. 65 

rocks. We don't see these rocks; they are 
under us and are hidden. But there they 
are, under the earth's surface; and there 
couldn't be any surface, if there wasn't any 
underground interior. 

Or go with me and look at the wonder- 
ful Brooklyn Bridge, over the East Kiver, in 
New York. There those two gigantic piers 
stand! Steamers and ships sail under the 
wire bridge, and the wires of the bridge 
rest on those great granite piers. It's very 
wonderful indeed ! But what do those heavy 
piers rest on to support the wires of the 
bridge ? We can't see any thing ; they seem 
to grow up out of the ground. Or look at 
the great tower of Trinity Church here in 
Boston. It seems to rest upon the roof, and 
it looks as light and graceful as if it was 
made out of pine wood. But down in the 
cellar of that church there are heavy granite 
blocks, taken from the old Trinity Church, 
on Summer Street; and these blocks of stone 
are piled together, and four heavy piers rest 
upon the granite foundation, and the beauti- 
5 



66 The Wicket-Gate. 

ful tower, which every body sees, rests after 
all upon the old granite blocks which no one 
sees, but which are hidden and buried in the 
cellar, away out of sight. 

Well, my dear children, just what the 
earth's interior is to its surface, — just what 
the heavy, unseen foundations are to the 
Brooklyn Bridge and to the great tower of 
Trinity Church, — God, and his truth, and his 
righteousness, are to this world. He can not 
deceive us ; that is the devil's work, not 
God's work. He has planted in our nature 
this idea of right and truth ; it has all come 
from him, and though we do not see these 
foundation-stones of our character, because 
they are hidden in our souls; there couldn't 
be any character at all without them: just 
as there could be no surface of the earth 
without an interior, and no bridge or tower 
without the foundations — real, though un- 
seen — for them to rest upon. 

David says, in one of his psalms, "If the 
foundations be destroyed what shall the right- 
eous do ? " 



The Evil Magician. 67 

If we say there is no right and truth, if 
we hocus-pocns with right and wrong, if we 
put evil for good, and darkness for light, and 
bitterness for sweetness, and mix them up so 
that we can not tell the false world from the 
real world, — as the magicians do with their 
tricks and illusions, — where will we be, and 
what shall become of us? 

But there is a true world and a false world; 
there is such a thing as light, and it is from 
God; and there is such a thing as darkness, 
and it is from the devil ; and we must learn 
to keep ourselves from idols, — from falsities 
and wrong conceptions, — and to know good 
from evil, and darkness from light, and sweet- 
ness from bitterness, and never — never — to 
do the devil's work, and put the one in the 
place of the other. 

And now we are through. 
Remember these two facts of our sermon 
to-day : 

1st. There is a real world, and 
2d. There is a false world. 



68 The Wicket-Gate. 

And remember the two temptations which 
come to us all: 

1st. The temptation to believe that the 
false world is the real world, and 

2d. The temptation to believe that the real 
world is the false world. 

And, above all, remember that black word 
— woe ! 

Oh how dark it looks! It is God who 
speaks it by the voice of his prophet. It is 
not an idle word. God means what he says. 

The whole world will go wrong if we trifle 
with God's standards of right and wrong. It 
is like trifling with a clock which governs a 
railroad, where hundreds of trains move by 
it! It is like trifling with a compass on a 
ship at sea, by which the vessel's course is 
steered ! The trains may run into each other 
if the clock in the superintendent's office is 
wrong; the ship may be dashed upon the 
rocks if the compass is altered. 

And souls may be lost, and the world be 
ruined, if we trifle with God's standard of 
right and wrong ; if in our studies, our work, 



The Evil Magician. 69 

or our play, we say, "It makes no difference 
how we live ; " and if, like the Father of Lies, 
we mix up right and wrong, and put "evil 
for good, and darkness for light, and bitter- 
ness for sweetness." 

Remember this text to-day, then; and when 
you trifle with truth or with righteousness, 
remember God's word, sounding like a peal 
of thunder and saying, "Woe unto you!" 



III. 



famps, jpittjrm, aito Cntmgcis. 



LAMPS, PITCHERS, AND 
TRUMPETS. 

"A trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, 
and lamps within the pitchers." — Judges vii. 16. 

CHESE words are found in the story of 
Gideon. We ought to know all these 
Bible stories at once, when we hear any 
reference to them, without having to go and 
read about them ; just as in school we ought 
to know our Latin Grammar rules without 
having to go to the book every time we are 
called upon for a rule. 

In old times, before there were so many 
books, in the old cathedrals and churches 
in Europe, the architects would cover the 
walls and the windows with paintings and 
stained glass and mosaic work, representing 
all the old Bible stories. St. Mark's Church, 
in Venice, is covered all over with Bible pic- 
tures in this way, made in mosaic work — or 



74 The Wicket-Gate. 

the process of putting little colored stones 
together so as to make a picture. In this 
way it happened that though many of the 
poor people could not read the Bible, there 
was the open Bible before them all the time ; 
so that they couldn't help seeing and know- 
ing a great deal about it. 

Now the story of Gideon is this: Once 
upon a time, in a very rough period of the 
history of the Israelites, before they became 
a nation and had a king, — when they were 
in the long promised land of Canaan very 
much as the early colonists here in America 
were before the colonies became the United 
States, when the French used to come down 
in incursions from Canada, and the differ- 
ent tribes of Indians attacked the settlers 
here, — the surrounding nations, the Midian- 
ites, and the Moabites, and the Jebusites, and 
the Hivites, and all the rest of them, were in 
the habit of fighting with the Israelites. 

About the year 1245 b. c, or 2,490 years 
before 1245 a. d., the Midianites, who lived 
to the east of Canaan, came down upon the 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 75 

new settlers there and tried to drive them 
out. There was no king in those days among 
the Israelites, and no regular standing army; 
but here and there were chieftains, or judges, 
as they were called, something like the old 
Scottish lairds and chieftains we read about 
in Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather." 
They would raise a company of men from 
their district, and other companies would 
join them, and in this way they would get 
together quite an army. Othniel was one 
of these warlike chieftains. He drove back 
the Assyrians, and for forty years was the 
judge or dictator. Ehud was another deliv- 
erer. He was a rough, wild, unscrupulous 
man. He assassinated the king of Moab, 
and drove the Moabites back to their own 
land. Shamgar was the name of another 
of these chieftains. He killed six hundred 
Philistines with the club he used for goad- 
ing his ox in his ox-cart. He must have 
been a rough sort of judge to those who 
were on the opposite side. Then there was 
Deborah, a prophetess, who used to go out to 



76 The Wicket-Gate. 

battle with a great military captain named 
Barak. They defeated Jabin, king of Ca- 
naan, at that time when Sisera was killed 
by Jael, the woman who thought she was 
doing right in telling a lie and deceiving 
an old friend, but who did a wicked, cruel 
thing after all. 

Samson, the strong man and the great 
mischief-maker, was another of these judges, 
and he plagued and tormented the Philistines 
until they got hold of him, and put out his 
eyes and cut off his hair, and took all the 
strength away from him. Abimelech and 
Jephthah and Gideon were also leaders of 
the people, in their different hours of trouble. 
Eli and Samuel were the last of the judges, 
and after them came the kingdom, with Saul 
as the first king. 

Well, as we were saying about Gideon, the 
Midianites came swarming down from the 
East upon the Israelites, and brought their 
families and cattle, and took possession of the 
land, and ate up all the provisions. It was 
a regular invasion. The Midianites came as 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 77 

conquerors of the land, and it looked just 
as if they meant to stay. At last the Israel- 
ites became so poor and downtrodden that it 
seemed like their old days in Egypt, when 
they were the slaves of Pharaoh. So they 
took to praying for deliverance, for people 
generally pray in earnest when they are in 
trouble; and God at last raised up Gideon, 
and inspired him to become their deliverer. 
So Gideon raised an army; and then, for 
fear there were too many men in it who 
might have said, " We gained the victory 
ourselves, with our own hands," he resolved 
to make his band smaller. First, he told all 
those who were afraid to go out to battle 
that they could return home. And twenty- 
two thousand men accepted the invitation 
and went home. I suppose they made all 
manner of excuses. Some of them didn't feel 
very well, and some of them had their feel- 
ings hurt because they hadn't been made 
officers, and some of them were in favor of 
compromising with the Midianites by mak- 
ing peace with them, and some people didn't 



78 The Wicket-Gate. 

like Gideon's way of fighting: he made them 
march out in the open plain, while they 
liked, above all things, to get behind stone 
walls and fences. So they went home, shak- 
ing their heads about poor Gideon and pity- 
ing him ! 

There were ten thousand men left who 
were ready and willing to go to the battle. 
But God told Gideon there were too many 
yet. So Gideon brought them down to a 
brook, and told every man to drink. Then 
there was a strange scene. Some of the men 
got down deliberately upon their hands and 
knees, as if they were playing camel, and 
put their mouths down to the water, and 
took a long and very comfortable drink ; 
just as some of us may have done when we 
were out fishing on some of our rivers and 
lakes. They enjoyed themselves, and had a 
good long drink, and took their time to it. 
Others of Gideon's company were in such a 
hurry to go after the Midianites, that they 
wouldn't take the time to get down upon 
their hands and knees, but lapped the water 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 79 

up to their mouths by their hands. "These 
are the men for me," said Gideon; and he 
sent all those home who did not lap up the 
water; and nine thousand seven hundred 
men went back again, and Gideon was left 
with only his three hundred men. 

Then that night, in the black midnight, 
Gideon took his servant-man with him, whose 
name was Phurah, and he stole over to the 
Midianites' camp. There were their camp- 
fires and their tents ; he could hear the horses 
neighing and stamping in their stalls, and 
could see all that was going on. Some of 
the soldiers were sleeping and snoring, and 
some were playing games, and some were 
eating and drinking, and others were tell- 
ing stories. We read that "the Midianites 
and the Amalekites and all the children of 
the East lay along in the valley like grass- 
hoppers for multitude; and their camels were 
without number." What a scene this must 
have been to Gideon and his man-servant, 
as they crawled in and out over the rocks 
and among the trees. Presently he heard 



80 The Wicket-Gate. 

one of the soldiers in the tents telling a 
dream he had, about a loaf of barley which 
tumbled into the camp and knocked down 
a tent. Then another soldier said, "I'll tell 
you what this is: this is the sword of Gid- 
eon, for into his hand hath God delivered 
Midian." This was enough for Gideon. He 
turned to go back to his three hundred brave 
men, but first we are told he worshipped. 
This means that before he went back he 
knelt down and thanked God for what he 
had heard. 

Then he divided his band into three com- 
panies, and instead of giving each man a 
sword, or a shield, or a spear, we read "he 
put a trumpet in every man's hand, with 
empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitch- 
ers." After this, when the word of command 
was given, these three companies rushed into 
the middle of the camp, breaking their pitch- 
ers, and waving their torches, and blowing 
with their trumpets, and shouting, " The 
sword of the Lord and of Gideon." Of course 
a panic followed, just like that which hap^ 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 81 

pened to the Assyrians at the time when 
King Hezekiah was invaded ; the Midian- 
ites took to fighting each other, and a per- 
fect rout ensued. Gideon and his men drove 
them out of the land altogether, and killed 
their princes. "We read about this in the 83d 
Psalm, where the psalmist, in speaking about 
the enemies of his country, says : " Make 
their nobles like Oreb and like Zeeb: yea, 
all their princes as Zebah and as Zalmun- 
na." These were the names of the Midianite 
princes whom Gideon destroyed. 

After this all the people, of course, wanted 
to make Gideon king, but he declined the 
honor. But the people never forgot about 
Gideon's band, and his wonderful battle with 
the lamps, pitchers, and trumpets. They re- 
membered the deliverance, just as we remem- 
ber the battle of Lexington, or Bunker Hill, 
and talked and wrote and sung about it, 
along with the stories of the Passover night, 
and the conquest of Canaan, and the forty 
years in the wilderness. 

This is the story of Gideon. Now we want 



82 The Wicket-Gate. 

to find out what lesson the lamps, pitchers, 
and trumpets teach us. 

Well, my dear children, the one great les- 
son for us is this : we must learn to fight life's 
battles with the weapons God has given us. 

These men in Gideon's band didn't com- 
plain because they couldn't have shields and 
spears and swords. It was God who was 
fighting for them and protecting them, and 
they were safe in his hands. He knew best 
what would make their enemies afraid; for 
when people are afraid they always run. 
Look at the siege of Jericho ! Instead of 
bringing great battering rams and engines 
and catapults to knock down the Avails of 
that city, God told Joshua to let the priests 
go around the city for seven days blowing 
rams' horns! How the Jericho -ians must 
have made fun of the priests ! I suppose 
they walked around the walls imitating them 
and laughing at them; but by and by, when 
the time came, sure enough, according to 
God's word, down came the walls as flat as 
a pancake! 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 83 

There are two ways of fighting: one is by 
arms, and the other is by strategy, or the 
way of taking your enemy by surprise. And 
there are two modes of warfare: one is by 
attack, and the other is by defence. When 
a city is stormed, as Yorktown was stormed 
by Washington and Lafayette in the Revolu- 
tionary War, or when Sebastopol was taken, 
in the Crimean War, there are men called 
sappers and miners, who dig approaches to 
the besieged city, and throw up earth-works, 
as they get nearer and nearer, to defend the 
attacking party. 

There is a motto which says, "Every thing 
is fair in war." This isn't true ; but then 
it's very hard to know what is right when 
we have got into such a state that we think 
it is right to kill off as many of the enemy 
as we can. Right and wrong get fearfully 
mixed in war times, and cannon smoke 
makes it very cloudy in the conscience. 

There have been some generals who were 
famous for deceiving their enemies, and then 
killing them when they were tricked. Han- 



84 The Wicket-Gate. 

nibal, the great Carthagenian general, was 
one of these men. He used to deceive his 
enemies, the Romans, and beat them by his 
tricks and strategy, or generalship. One 
time he let a part of his army light the 
Romans and then he brought around in 
their rear a great quantity of elephants, 
which waved torches over their heads with 
their trunks. The Romans had never seen 
elephants in this way, and they were fright- 
ened out of their lives, and ran like a herd 
of scared sheep. 

But this battle of Gideon's with the lamps, 
pitchers, and trumpets, was to make the 
Israelites feel that they were dependent, 
after all, upon the God of their fathers, 
who had always taken care of them from 
the day when they left Egypt all the way 
down to their day. The battle was won not 
by their skill in fighting, but by their obedi- 
ence to God and their trust in him. 

And, my dear children, there are hidden 
enemies all around us, as there were around 
the Israelites in Canaan. They are in real- 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 85 

ity worse than these Midianites and Moab- 
ites and the others which were around 
God's chosen people. If we are Christians, 
we are trying to drive out these evil hab- 
its and temptations from our soul, just as 
Joshua and Gideon and these other chieftains 
drove back the enemies that came settling 
down upon them and occupied the land. 
God has given us our weapons as he gave 
them to Gideon, and if we are to win in the 
great fight of life we must use them as Gid- 
eon's band did, when they shouted out, " The 
sword of the Lord and of Gideon." 

Lamps, Pitchers, and Trumpets. What do 
these three weapons mean? 



First of all come the Lamps. "Lamps 
within the pitchers." 

These lamps were not glass lamps or lan- 
terns ; they were very probably torches made 
out of long sticks with pitch and tar and tur- 
pentine on the end. If you have ever been 
in the woods, camping out at night, you 



86 The Wicket-Gate. 

know how easy it is to cut a club, and tie 
pine cones on to the end of it, and use it as 
a torch. I suppose these lamps were torches, 
or flambeaus, something like the kind we use 
in the woods. 

Three hundred of these flaring torches in 
the dead of night would make a great light. 

A torchlight procession, you know, such as 
we have before our elections, makes a great 
show at night. 

Well, whatever these lamps were, they 
were hidden for a while in the earthen pitch- 
ers or jars, and then, when the time came to 
flare them aloft, down went the pitchers and 
up went the lights ! 

In other words, our lesson is, if we want to 
win, we must use our light and knowledge; 
we mustn't keep our lamps hidden in the 
pitchers. Now you know we all have this 
light of truth within us ! Some of this light 
is in the world of Nature, some of it is in our 
own hearts, and a great deal of it is in the 
revelation of God's word from heaven. 

We sing in one of our hymns — 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 87 

"Let the lower lights be burning, 
Send a gleam across the wave." 

This means that we must not shut up our 
light and truth to ourselves, but that we 
must let others know of it. Our Saviour's 
words are, " Let your light so shine before 
men, that they may see your good works, 
and glorify your Father which is in heaven." 
And David says, "Thy word is a lamp to my 
feet and a light to my path." 

Look at the moon in heaven! What makes 
it so beautiful ? Simply the fact, that instead 
of taking in or absorbing all the light of the 
sun, it reflects it and gives it forth to us! 
Use your light, my dear children: use it for 
yourself, use it for others. 

I remember a story of a deacon who used 
to pray, "Oh Lord! bless me and my wife, 
and Uncle John and his wife — we four, and 
no more ! " That man hadn't got his lamp 
out of the pitcher! He wasn't waving it 
aloft for others to see by. On the other 
hand, there was Paul Eevere, in the old tow- 
er of Christ Church, here at the North end ! 



88 The Wicket-Gate. 

When he saw the bonfire that told about 
the British coming, he got out his lantern 
and hung it up, as a signal for all the peo- 
ple in Boston. Why Beacon Hill, where the 
State House now stands, was in old times a 
place where a great blazing bonfire or bea- 
con was made to be seen down the Charles 
River and the harbor. That is what its name 



comes from. And in the same way, my dear 
children, we ought to be lights and examples 
to others of the light that we have within us. 

"Jesus bids us shine in this dark, dark world: 
Jesus bids us shine: 
You in your small corner, 

I in mine, 
Jesus bids us shine." 

We oughtn't to act as if we didn't know 
the difference between right and wrong, and 
truth and falsehood. We oughtn't to act as 
Chinese or African children act, who don't 
know any thing about Jesus Christ! We 
are in the light; we have had the light and 
truth given to us by Jesus our Saviour ; 
we have been brought up in the Christian 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 89 

Church, we ought to wave our lamps aloft 
for others to see by. 

There is an old Greek motto, which is re- 
presented by a hand giving a burning torch 
to another hand, and underneath are these 
words : 

"AajU7td8ia exovteS 8kx8oo6ov6iv dXXrjXoii." 

" Having lights they pass them on to 
others." 

That ought to be our motto, if we are fol- 
lowers of God as dear children. 

II. 

Secondly, come the Pitchers. These pitch- 
ers were very probably large earthen jars, 
or stone barrels, something like those which 
were meant for holding water at the mar- 
riage feast at Cana of Galilee. Gideon's com- 
pany used these pitchers or jars as a dark 
lantern, to keep their torches in. Perhaps 
they had rosin and turpentine in them, to 
help make a flame. These pitchers were of 
great use up to a certain time, but after 



90 The Wicket-Gate. 

that they were only in the way. There was 
a time to use these pitchers, and a time to 
break them. Of course they made a great 
clatter when three hundred of them were 
shivered into bits upon the ground, and in 
this way they helped to frighten the Miclian- 
ites. But their first use was as receptacles, 
or boxes, to hide the lamps in, until the time 
came to use them. They were made to be 
used, and then to be broken when the hour 
of their use was passed. 

And here we find out the meaning of these 
pitchers. They held the lamps up to a cer- 
tain time and then they were thrown away, 
because they were no longer of any use. So 
it is with us: there is a time to use our lan- 
tern holders, and a time to throw them awa} r . 
By the pitchers, or lantern holders, then, I 
mean all those things which help us to retain 
our knowledge and light. I mean books and 
rules, and plans and resolutions. All these 
things are of great use to us up to a certain 
point; they are like the pitchers which held 
the lamps; but after all it was the lamps 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 91 

which did the work on the Midianites, not 
the pitchers. My dear children, you have all 
got to learn that you must hold your own 
torches in the world, and fight your own way 
against the trials and troubles and tempta- 
tions in your path. There is a time when 
you must take your lamp out of the pitcher, 
with as much lire as it has got on it, and 
must throw your pitcher away. I mean by 
this, that there is coming a time when you 
will have to act for yourself: you won't be 
able to lean upon your parents, or your 
friends, or your teachers, or your books. 
You will have to act for yourself, according 
to the light you have; and that is just like 
the moment when Gideon's band threw aside 
their pitchers and went for the Midianites. 

In other words, and here is the point of the 
whole matter: you must get out your light 
and knowledge from books and friends and 
parents and the whole outside world, and 
you must get it into your oiun head. 

I remember a man in college who used to 
draw lines of geometry — squares and cubes 



92 The Wicket-Gate. 

and triangles — on the blackboard, and then, 
when he came to explain them to the pro- 
fessor and the class, he would say, when the 
professor said, 

"How is that, Mr. ?" 

"That's what the book says, sir ; that's 
what the book says." 

That man was holding on to his pitcher: 
he wasn't using his own lamp one bit. The 
book was necessary to get the idea into the 
man's head, but after it was there it was of 
no more use. But the trouble was that the 
man didn't get the idea into his head at all ! 
He was like one of Gideons men who would 
want to keep dipping his lamp in his pitcher 
all the time. 

There was a general in the late war for the 
Union, who was a citizen brigadier-general. 
He was a dry-goods merchant, and he raised 
a lot of money and some men, and they 
made him a brigadier. He went to work and 
bought some military books, " Mahan's Field 
Fortifications" and "Marmont's Spirit of Mili- 
tary Institutions," and studied these at night. 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 93 

At last the day came when he met the enemy 
in battle. He had his books by his side, and 
his maps on his saddle, and while the battle 
was going on, he was looking through his 
spectacles, up and down his book, to see 
what he should do next. At last a big shell 
came and burst near him, and it made him 
feel bad, and he had to leave the field ; and it 
is needless to say his army was all broken up. 

That miserable brigadier-general was hold- 
ing on to his pitcher, when he ought to 
have been waving his lamp ! He should have 
known what to do next, at the front of the 
attack, out of his oivn head, instead of study- 
ing in the rear rank, out of his book. 

Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico, knew bet- 
ter than this brigadier- general. When he 
landed on this continent, and saw that his 
followers kept an eye on their ships, in which 
to return in case they were beaten ; he did a 
grand, bold thing: he burned his ships, so 
that his men had to fight hard to win, in 
order to be saved. 

You know there is an old expression about 



94 The Wicket-Gate. 

"Throwing away one's scabbard." That sim- 
ply means that there comes a time when the 
sword only is of use, and that its sheath, or 
the receptacle which held it, will never be 
wanted any more. And just in this same 
way we must learn to use our books and our 
knowledge until we have got possession of 
them, and then we must learn to walk our- 
selves, without using crutches all the time. 
I remember a minister once, who said he 
could write sermons well enough, but his 
only trouble was a want of ideas. Now there 
was nothing to be done with that man: he 
hadn't any lamp himself; he was hugging 
on to his pitcher; he was depending upon 
books and rules, and all sorts of outside 
things; he was afraid to throw away his 
pitcher. He wouldn't count one in the battle- 
field of life ! 

III. 

And then, lastly, there are the Trumpets. 
You know what a peculiar note that of a 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 95 

trumpet is. It is harsh and shrill ; it can be 
heard at a great distance and sounds like a 
fog-horn at sea. Whenever you see a pro- 
cession of soldiers, and hear a band of music, 
you can always hear, above all the other in- 
struments, the sound of the trumpet. There 
was a blind girl once, whose teacher was 
trying to explain to her the different colors. 
After she had explained to her blind pupil 
the color scarlet, she asked her what she 
thought it must be like. " Oh," replied the 
blind girl, " I think it must look something 
like the way a trumpet sounds." That was 
a most excellent definition of a trumpet. 
Now these shrill trumpets in Gideon's band 
were used on purpose to frighten the Mid- 
ianites. In the dark night they saw the 
lamps waving, and heard the pitchers break, 
and above all this stir and noise they could 
hear Gideon's men blowing away on their 
trumpets. 

Now then, just as the lamps mean knowl- 
edge or light, and the pitchers represent the 
means by which Ave receive or carry our 



90 The Wicket-Gate. 

light, so the trumpets mean the sound of the 
human voice — speaking, talking, and asking 
questions. We can't get on in the world 
without talking. Even the poor deaf and 
dumb people have a sign-language of their 
own, and talk to each other by means of 
their fingers. 

The trumpet means for us, in this story, 
the sound of the voice: it is the power of 
uttering our thoughts to the world by the 
means of language. 

There was a little girl once, who left her 
home in the country to go on a long journey 
to Boston in the cars. Some of the family 
were afraid to have her go alone, but her 
old, queer Uncle Hugh thought it was best 
for her to go. So they all gave her bits of 
advice. One said, not to jump off the cars 
while they were in motion; another said, not 
to put her head out of the window; a third 
said, " Sit in the middle of the car " ; a fourth 
said, "Give your ticket to the conductor"; a 
fifth said, "When you arrive at the depot, 
take your first turn to the left, then your 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 97 

second to the right, then your third on your 
left, etc."; — and the poor child had so much 
advice given her that she was afraid to start 
off. But her old uncle said, " Polly, my dear, 
instead of giving you advice now, I only give 
you this note. After the train has started, 
open the note and follow the advice. Good- 
by." So Polly started off. After she had 
bidden them all good-by, and had wiped 
her eyes and was comfortably seated in the 
cars, she thought of her Uncle Hugh's note. 
So she got down her bag and opened it, 
and took out Uncle Hugh's letter. It read 
as follows: 

"Dear Polly: — Here are my rules for trav- 
ellers. Mind them and all will go well. 

"Your uncle, Hugh." 



HUZ&S FOR TH^.YZJZZBHS. 

I. Do as other people do. 
II. 2*ake nothing for granted. 
III. Use your bell-clapper. 



98 The Wicket-Gate. 

The bell-clapper was the tongue. What 
Uncle Hugh meant to say to Polly was, "Use 
your tongue: ask questions." And, my dear 
children, the tongue is one of the greatest 
weapons for good or for evil in the world. 
Out of it cometh blessing and cursing, words 
of prayer and words of sin. When wrongly 
used it is a terrible weapon for evil; but 
when we use it rightly it is as great a weap- 
on to bear down falsehood and destroy igno- 
rance as Gideon's trumpets were the weapons 
by which the tents of the Midianites were 
tumbled down. 



Lamps 
Seeing 
Light 



Pitchers, and Trumpets. 
Holding : Speaking 
Self-reliance : Communication. 



These are the three weapons in the soul's 
warfare against sin which we must use, each 
in its right way, if we would win in the fight 
against evil and temptation, as Gideon won 
in his battle, by using the weapons God told 
him to use. We must pray to God, through 



Lamps, Pitchers, Trumpets. 99 

Jesus Christ, to help us to get our outside 
knowledge into our soul, and to let it shine 
for him, just as Gideon's band had their pitch- 
ers first, and their lamps afterwards ; and we 
must pray to him to help us to use our voices 
in his cause, and on the side of the truth, as 
Gideon's men did, when they waved their 
torches and sounded their trumpets and cried, 
"The sword of the Lord — and of Gideon." 



IV. 



Zoning § i % t i p 1 e s . 



RUNNING DISCIPLES. 

"So they ran both together: and the other disciple 
did outrun Peter." — John xs. 4. 

jJYp'HERE is always something the matter 
^^ when grown-up people run. Boys and 
girls hardly ever walk — they always run. 
But men and women very seldom run. All 
young creatures love to run. Look at a bas- 
ketful of kittens, or a box in the barn with 
puppies; or look at calves and lambs in a 
pasture. They are running all the time ; 
round and round they go spinning about, and 
never stopping to rest, till it is time for them 
to go to sleep. And when we are children 
we seem very near to the little animals, and 
love to read about them, and see pictures 
of them, and play with them or with toys 
which represent them. We are young ani- 
mals ourselves when we are little, and we 



104 The Wicket-Gate. 

play and scamper and cut up capers just like 
the lambs in a field. And then as we begin 
to grow older we become more quiet and se- 
date, and one of the first things which marks 
the difference between the man and the boy, 
and shows us that the boy has become the 
man, is that he walks now instead of running. 
Running belongs to boys; walking belongs 
to men. So, as I was saying when I began, 
there is always something the matter when 
people run. If there is an accident in the 
street, or a dog -fight, or a man being ar- 
rested, or a procession of soldiers, or a light- 
ning calculator, people will run as fast as 
boys. Then, too, people always run when 
there is a fire, or when they have to catch a 
train or a steamboat, and haven't much time. 
Here in Boston, where we live, a great 
many people have their homes out of town 
and come into the city every day for busi- 
ness. A great many boys and girls come in 
town to school in the early trains, and go 
out to their homes after two o'clock. I have 
often watched people hurrying to the cars, as 



Running Disciples. 105 
\ 

I have waited at the Brookline depot. All 
along the streets leading to the station the 
people keep coming, looking np at the sta- 
tion clock, and at last, as the minnte hand 
points to one minute of the hour, every body 
runs, — men, women and children, — and those 
that are fast catch the train, while the lag- 
gards have to wait for the next train. Now 
in the words of the text we have an account 
of a race between two disciples, to see who 
should get first to the sepulchre where their 
Lord had been laid. It was Peter and John 
who ran together to the tomb. St. John 
does not tell us that the "other disciple" 
was himself. But then we know perfectly 
well that it was St. John who always spoke 
of himself as the " other disciple." He did 
not like to use the pronoun "I." He was 
very humble -minded and did not like to 
talk about himself. Just remember this, my 
dear children, and when you talk and write, 
see how many times you can blot out the 
word "I," or can get on without it in conver- 
sation, and you will be all the better for it. 



106 The Wicket-Gate. 

Well, to come back to our story, on the 
first day of the week, or the day after the 
Jewish Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, the wo- 
man whom our Lord had healed and for- 
given, came running into Jerusalem with a 
wonderful story. She hunted up Peter and 
John, and told them that she had been to the 
tomb of Jesus, and that he was not there. 
She was afraid some one had stolen him. 
"They have taken away the Lord out of 
the sepulchre, " she said, " and we know 
not where they have laid him." You see 
Peter and John had not been to the sepulchre 
yet. Peter had kept away by himself ever 
since the moment when he denied Jesus in 
the Judgment Hall, and had gone out in the 
early morning to weep bitterly. St. John 
had been with the mother of Jesus at the foot 
of the cross, and had taken the poor, heart- 
stricken Mary home again, and had, in all 
probability, been with Joseph of Arimathea 
and. Nicodemus, in carrying the body of the 
dead Christ to the tomb. In the cathedral at 
Antwerp, in Belgium, there is the famous 



Running Disciples. 107 

picture by the painter Rubens, of the Descent 
from the Cross. Rubens was one of the most 
celebrated painters in the world, and this is 
his greatest painting. It is a wonderful pic- 
ture. Joseph of Arimathea is there, and 
Rubens has put St. John in the picture. He 
is receiving the cold and lifeless limbs of 
the crucified Saviour, and you can see how 
gently and tenderly he is taking them into 
his arms. But whether St. John was present 
when Jesus was buried, according to this 
picture, or not, he had not been to the tomb 
since the Sabbath day. Therefore, when 
Mary Magdalene came running in and say- 
ing that Jesus was not in the sepulchre, Peter 
and John went right out with Mary, while 
it was yet early in the morning, and walked 
rapidly to the tomb. Then, I suppose, when 
they came near to it they began to run both 
together, and as they went on running faster 
and faster, John who was probably lighter 
and more active than Peter, got ahead of him 
and outran him and came first to the tomb. 
But there he stopped, and waited for the 



108 The Wicket-Gate. 

others to come up. He stooped down and 
looked into the cavern of the rock and saw 
the linen clothes lying there, but he did not 
go in. Then when Simon Peter came along, 
he did not stop at the door of the cave; he 
went right in and took notice that the head 
napkin, which had been on the Saviour's 
brow, was not with the rest of the grave- 
clothes, but was wrapped up and put in a 
place by itself; showing that some living 
person had been there. Then the " other 
disciple," as St. John called himself, went 
into the sepulchre and he saw and believed. 
Then Peter and John went home again, but 
Mary, faithful Mary, the first at the tomb in 
the morning and the last to leave it, remained 
in the garden, and was the first person to 
whom our Lord showed himself alive on the 
morning of the Resurrection. On another oc- 
casion, when our Lord showed himself to the 
disciples on the Sea of Tiberias, after his res- 
urrection, John was the first to see Jesus 
upon the shore, but Simon Peter threw him- 
self out of the boat and was the first to land. 



Running Disciples. 109 

So St. John did not always outrun Peter, al- 
though he did when they ran their race to 
the sepulchre on the first Easter morning. 

"Running disciples." This is the subject 
of our sermon to-day. 

What do we learn from it? 

I. 

First of all, we learn there are some dis- 
ciples who have come to a stand-still. When 
people go to Europe in the great ocean 
steamers, which go back and forth so regu- 
larly between Europe and America, they 
never think about the machinery, which is 
stowed away in the vessel's hold, until it 
stops working, and then every body is awake 
and on deck, to know what is the matter. 
Sometimes the long shaft which turns the 
propeller has to be screwed up, or keyed up, 
as it is called; and to key up the propeller 
the machinery has to be stopped, and when 
the machinery stops and the steamer comes 
to a stand-still every body begins to wonder 



110 The Wicket-Gate. 

about the machinery, though they never 
thought about it before. It is the same way 
with a train of cars when they stop suddenly 
and there is no station in sight. The win- 
dows go up, and people's heads go out, to 
see what is the matter, what is the reason for 
this stand-still. And when the machinery of 
the human body is affected, and some parts 
of it stop working, or work slowly, then we 
begin to wonder what is the matter with us. 
Sometimes we never know we have a head 
till we have a headache ; or never know that 
we have a heart or lungs until they need 
keying up, like the propeller at sea, and we 
have to drop our anchors, and furl our sails 
for a while, and get rested. There are a 
great many of these stoppages in life. Some 
people stop being respectable. Boys and 
young men who loaf around street-corners, 
and taverns and engine-houses, have come to 
the stand-still of respectability. Other peo- 
ple stop being honest: they don't pay their 
bills, and don't care for their good reputation 
of being thought upright persons. They 



Running Disciples. Ill 

need keying np in their morals. And then 
there are a great many people who were 
once running disciples of the Lord Jesus 
Christ, who don't even walk in his ways any 
longer. They are disciples who have stopped 
following him, they have come to a stand- 
still. And then, just as with the steamer 
and the locomotive and the sick person, 
where there is something wrong, you may 
depend upon it there is something the mat- 
ter with these persons' souls. There are 
many people who get into such a state 
of mind that they don't believe in any God, 
or any soul, or any future. They don't 
think that life is worth living, or that there 
is any use in being good or in doing good. 
Now, my dear children, 1 tell you it's a 
dreadful thing to get becalmed in this way, 
and become disciples who have come to 
a stand -still, — disciples who don't go at 
all! 

There is a very pretty song, which some 
of you may have heard, about a clock that 
wouldn't go. One verse of it is as follows: 



112 The Wicket-Gate. 

"My grandfather's clock was too large for the shelf, 

So it stood ninety years on the floor; 
It was three times as large as the old man himself, 

But it weighed not a pennyweight more. 
It was bought on the morn of the day that he was born, 

And was always his treasure and his pride; 
But it stopped— short — never to go again — 

When the old man died! 
Ninety years without slumbering, tick — tick — tick — 

tick; 
His life's seconds numbering, tick — tick — tick — tick — 
It stopped, short, never to go again, 

When the old man died!" 

Well, my dear children, there are a great 
many Christians in the world who are like 
a stopped clock. They dorit go any more. 
You can't tell the Christian time of day by 
looking at their faces. Something's the mat- 
ter inside. Why look at the early Church 
at Jerusalem, when they were waiting for 
the Spirit of God to come down upon them ! 
When Jesus died, the disciples seemed to stop 
going, like this "Grandfather's Clock." After 
his resurrection, and ascension into heaven, 
they waited at Jerusalem for the day of Pen- 



Running Disciples. 113 

tecost to come, but they had many doubts 
and fears, you may depend upon it, about 
the future. No doubt James and Andrew 
thought of their old fishing haunts on the 
Lake of Galilee, and Philip wondered about 
his friends and companions at Bethsaida, and 
Levi remembered his past life as a collector 
of taxes. The entire Christian Church had 
come to a stand-still. Much of their faith 
and hope had stopped, and if the Church 
had sprung out only from man, it would 
have never gone on again, like some old 
and rusty clock that was all worn out. 

But when the Spirit of God came down 
upon them like flaming tongues of fire, the 
Church which had come to a stand-still went 
on again, and the old companions of Jesus 
became running disciples in his service once 
more. It was just like fresh steam coming 
to an engine; it was like a fresh breeze 
striking a becalmed vessel; it was like key- 
ing up the steamer's shaft, or like winding 
up a clock which had run down. And when 
we feel that we have come to a stand-still, 



114 The Wicket-Gate. 

when our faith has stopped, and we don't 
take any pleasure in serving Christ or in 
praying to him, then Ave ought to ask the 
Holy Spirit to come to us with fresh impulses 
and desires, to enable us to go on in his ser- 
vice again. For we will never in the world 
get to heaven if we are only disciples who 
are standing still. 



II. 



Secondly: There are some diA'c;jies wlin are 
walking disciples. We hear a great deal in 
the Bible about a person's "walk and conver- 
sation." You know we can very often tell a 
person's character by his handwriting, and 
by his way of walking, and by the tones of 
his voice. When Simon Peter denied his 
Lord in the Judgment Hall, the maid-servant 
said that she knew he was one of the follow- 
ers of Jesus, because his speech betrayed 
him. It had the Galilean accent, just as we 
can tell a person who comes from Down East, 
by the tones of his voice. If a person has a 



Running Disciples. 115 

short, mincing step it shows that his charac- 
ter and his will have influenced him so that 
his very gait partakes of this peculiarity. 
When a man rolls and lounges as he walks, 
and swings his shoulders from side to side, 
like an old sailor ashore, or a jolly old ele- 
phant in the menagerie ring, — we know that 
the man is a good-humored, kind-hearted 
soul. There is a great deal, after all, in a 
person's walk ; and thus it happened that the 
Apostle Paul got into the way of speaking 
of the Christian's ivalk and conversation. A 
drunken man's walk and conversation reveals 
a drunken man's character. He staggers and 
swears, and we know at once what kind of a 
man he is. We would be very much sur- 
prised to see a minister, or a church deacon, 
reeling along the street and swearing. That 
would not be the walk or the conversation 
for those who professed to be the followers 
of Christ. When people go to a funeral they 
walk in slow and solemn procession; they 
don't run, or hurry the body to the grave. 
But when we see any person whom we love 



116 The Wicket-Gate. 

very much, and whom we haven't seen for a 
long time, we generally hurry up our steps 
and run to meet them. After our Lord's res- 
urrection he overtook two of his disciples as 
they were going to a little village called Em- 
maus, and they walked together. The disci- 
ples did not know that it was Jesus. As 
they walked along the road our Lord ex- 
plained the Scriptures to them, and then, 
when they arrived at their journey's end, 
they asked him to remain and eat bread with 
them. And we read that " they said one to 
another, Did not our hearts burn within us, 
while he talked with us by the way, and 
while he opened to us the Scriptures ? And 
they rose up the same hour, and returned 
to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered 
together, and them that were with them, 
Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath 
appeared to Simon. And they told what 
things were done in the way, and how he 
was known of them in breaking of bread." 
Don't you suppose that those disciples hur- 
ried back over the way they had come with 



Running Disciples. 117 

quicker steps, because they had seen their 
risen Saviour, than they did when they were 
slowly walking out to Emmaus? It makes 
a great difference, I tell you, in our walks, 
what motives we have which are leading us. 
I knew a boy once, who was so slow, and 
who used always to be late at school, and 
to play, and to every thing except dinner, 
that we boys, who used to play with him, 
called him "Sergeant Slowboots." You know 
boys very often give good names. And to 
this day, whenever I meet that man, there 
he goes, sauntering along as if there were 
twenty-seven days in the week instead of 
seven; and I believe still, that nothing but 
his dinner ever makes Sergeant Slowboots 
hurry up. If we are going to the dentist's 
we generally take our time to it. We are 
not in a great hurry to get there. But if 
we are going out into the country to have a 
good time, on Saturday afternoon, in Octo- 
ber, we don't like to waste the minutes on 
the way by walking slowly. In China, on 
the great rivers there, there are many boat- 



118 The Wicket-Gate. 

men who keep great quantities of ducks and 
geese in their boats, or junks, as they are 
called. In the morning a plank is let down 
from the side of the junk, and the ducks and 
geese go off for the day, to swim about and 
pick up what they can get on the water. 
Then at night they come back to the junk 
and wait until the plank is put down for 
them to get on board. Then what a hurry- 
ing time there is ! They jump and scramble 
and flap with their wings, and beat one an- 
other back, for the last duck always gets a 
whipping. There stands the Chinese boat- 
man with his whip of three cords; and woe 
betide the last duck, for she catches it thick 
and fast. So those ducks don't stand still or 
walk on the plank. They run up into the 
boat as fast as their waddling web feet and 
their wings will carry them. 

Well, my dear children, if we are really 
trying to walk in the way of God's command- 
ments, we ought to be eager and ready to 
walk according to his laws. We ought to 
pray the prayer of the psalmist, "Quicken 



Running Disciples. 119 

thou me in thy way," so that we may be 
able to say: "I will run the way of thy 
commandments when thou shalt enlarge my 
heart." God doesn't expect hard things of 
us; he does not ask us to do impossible 
things for him. But just as we ought not 
to loiter on our way when we have been sent 
on errands by our parents, and just as it is 
unnatural and shows that there is something 
wrong when we don't want to meet our fa- 
ther, and don't want to walk home towards 
our father's house, so, as the disciples of Je- 
sus, we ought not to lag along in his ser- 
vice, and be sleepy, tired, stumbling disci- 
ples, ready to halt every little while, and 
not caring very much how fast or how slow 
we are going. 

We may not all be able to be great saints, 
running towards Jesus all the time as Pe- 
ter and John ran to the sepulchre, but there 
will be a blessing for us in doing what we 
can for Christ, even that blessing which 
attendeth him who " walketh not in the 
counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the 



120 The Wicket-Gate. 

way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of 
the scornful." 

III. 

Thirdly — there are running disciples. We 
have seen what kind of disciples stand-still 
disciples and walking disciples are. Now 
we come to the last set, or to those who are 
running disciples. Some of our Lord's dis- 
ciples get on faster than others. We read 
in our text that "the other disciple did 
outrun Peter, and came first to the sepul- 
chre." John was ahead of Peter all the 
time. He saw things before Peter did. He 
had a quicker eye and a quicker step. You 
know how this is. Some people when they 
enter a room see every thing that is in it 
right off, while other people never seem to 
notice any thing at all. Some people are 
lithe and active, and can run for a chair or 
a book, while the rest of the company are 
wondering what to do. It is this quick eye 
and quick step which makes a business man 



Running Disciples. 121 

successful. Never to be above one's work, 
never to think any little action too little, to 
be always ready and willing for service, 
these are maxims which will make busy, 
promising boys in stores and offices success- 
ful and enterprising men. 

When he was a young lieutenant, the 
officer in command asked the Duke of Well- 
ington, then known as Arthur Wellesley, 
how soon he could leave London for India. 
The Duke of Wellington looked at his watch 
and replied, "In fifteen minutes, sir." And 
sure enough, in fifteen minutes there was. 
the duke at the door, with his small trunk 
on the carriage. Now I call that quickness 
and readiness which the Duke of Welling- 
ton showed, the sign that he was a wide- 
awake^ running disciple of his country. He 
ran to do ids duty, as Peter and John ran 
to the sepulchre. He did not loiter on the 
way, or walk slowly, or come to a stand- 
still like the steamer in mid ocean, or the 
old "Grandfather's Clock." God's angels in 
heaven are running disciples. They fly 



122 The Wicket-Gate. 

to do his will. Nothing stands in their 
way. 

"God builds on liquid air and forms 
His palace chambers in the skies, 
The clouds his chariots are, and storms 
The swift-winged steeds with which he flies. 

"As bright as flame, as swift as wind, 
His ministers heaven's palace fill. 
They have their sundry tasks assigned, 
All prompt to do their sovereign's will." 

When a person runs he must have some 
object in view which influences him to take 
such quick steps. In a yacht-race or in a 
horse-race, those who do the driving are 
urged on by the desire of winning. Every 
possible inch of canvas is put upon the boat, 
and every available pound is taken off the 
wagon, to insure success. And St. Paul, in 
his first Epistle to the Corinthians, says: 
"Know ye not that they which run in a race, 
run all, but one receiveth the prize ? So run 
that ye may obtain. Now they do it to ob- 
tain a corruptible crown; but we an incor- 



Running Disciples. 123 

ruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncer- 
tainly ; so tight I, not as one that beateth the 
air: but I keep under my body, and bring 
it into subjection: lest that by any means, 
when I have preached to others, I myself 
should be a castaway." St. Paul was a run- 
ning disciple. He said he was the weakest 
of the apostles, and was not fit to be called 
an apostle, because he had persecuted the 
Church; but nevertheless he outran all the 
other apostles, and was the most wonderful 
man that has ever appeared in the Christian 
Church. 

Children, I want you all to be running dis- 
ciples of Jesus ; eager and ready to be doing 
and living for him. Don't stand still. Don't 
saunter along in the way of duty as if it 
didn't matter much what time of day it was 
when you got home. Be quick-eared, quick- 
eyed, and quick-stepping in the service of 
your Master, as those two disciples were 
when "they ran both together, and" when 
"the other disciple," that is the one who 
loved his Lord the most, "outran Simon Pe- 



124 The Wicket-Gate. 

ter" — the man who had denied him — "and 
came first to the sepulchre"; that empty 
sepulchre where Death had been robbed of 
his sting, by the Saviour of the world, on the 
world's first Easter Morning. 



learning In C jjinft. 



LEARNING TO THINK. 

"And it came to pass, that after three days they found 
him in the Temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, 
both hearing them, and asking them questions. "—St. 
Luke ii. 46. 

OJQ^VE all know this story about the boy 
vix-A Jesus with the doctors in the Tem- 
ple. It is the only glimpse we have of our 
Saviour's child-life. 

There are many stories about the life of 
Jesus as a boy which are untrue, and which 
read like the stories of the "Arabian Nights" 
and all such Eastern tales. 

But although we have read this story of 
Jesus with the doctors so many times, let us 
to-day go over it once more, and see just 
what it was and what it teaches us. 

The caravan or company of worshippers 
who had come down from the hill country of 
the north to Jerusalem, were on their way 
back again when Mary and Joseph first 



128 The Wicket-Gate. 

missed their boy. There were no stages, or 
any means of travelling, in those days, over 
this journey. It was seventy miles from Je- 
rusalem to Nazareth; about as far as from 
Boston to Springfield. Some of these peo- 
ple went on foot, and some were on mules, 
and some were carried in carts and wag- 
ons. They travelled together, so as to be 
protected from any robbers or wild beasts; 
and at night they would pitch their tents 
and light their fires, to keep themselves 
warm, and to frighten off the jackals. 

It must have been like a great picnic ; and 
the children, no doubt, enjoyed these trips 
to Jerusalem very much. First, there was 
the great city to see, with all its wonders. 
Think how these country boys and girls must 
have enjoyed seeing the Roman soldiers, and 
the horses and chariots of the nobles, and 
the great palaces, and the Temple, with the 
priests and the people there. Then think, 
too, how they must have liked going back 
with the caravans, running along the line 
and playing with each other; and how they 



Learning to Think. 129 

must have enjoyed gathering sticks for the 
fires at night, and snuggling to sleep under 
the tents; for there is always a fresh feeling 
in going to sleep for the first time under a 
tent. I suppose that Joseph and Mary were 
talking with their friends about the Pass- 
over Feast, from which they were just return- 
ing, when some one said, "Where is your 
child ; where is your boy, Jesus ? " and Mary- 
replied, "Oh, he is in the company some- 
where, with the rest of the children ! " But 
by and by he couldn't be found. The other 
children were all there — all the Nazareth 
boys and girls. But none of them could tell 
any thing about Jesus ; none of them re- 
membered seeing him. "Where did you see 
him last ? " asks the frightened Mary, getting 
her things together to go right straight back 
for him. Some of the children thought they 
remembered seeing him talking with the old 
doctors in the Temple when the caravan 
started out, but they weren't sure about it. 
No one ever is sure about a thing when it's 
lost you know, but after it has been found 



130 The Wicket-Gate. 

then they are always sure they were right. 
Well, Joseph and Mary left their friends in 
the company, bound home to Nazareth, and 
they posted back in haste to Jerusalem, to 
find Jesus. First they looked all through the 
caravan to see that he w T as not there. We 
read that " supposing him to have been in 
the company they went a day's journey; and 
they sought him among their kinsfolk and 
acquaintance." This means that they went 
up and down the line, looking in among all 
the groups of children for their boy. But he 
wasn't there, and so they had to go all the 
way back to the city. First of all, I suppose, 
they went to the house where they had been 
staying; but he wasn't there. Then they in- 
quired in the streets, but none of the watch- 
men had heard of any lost child. And then, 
after three days' search, they went to the 
Temple; and there, in one of the side-rooms, 
or nooks, they saw a group of old men lean- 
ing forward around their darling boy, while 
he was hearing them talk and was asking 
them questions. 



Learning to Think. 131 

What a scene this must have been ! There 
were the old men crouching around the child 
when the door was opened, and there stood 
Mary and Joseph. " Son," — she said, — " why- 
hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy 
father and I have sought thee sorrowing." 
There was some rebuke in these words for 
Jesus: as if she had said, "Why have you 
given us all this trouble? We have been 
searching all through the caravan and all 
through the city for you." 

The words of Jesus in reply to his mother 
were wonderful words, and made a deep im- 
pression upon her mind. The others which 
were about her did not get the meaning of 
them, but his mother remembered all his 
words, and kept these sayings in her heart. 
For Jesus told his mother that it was now 
time for him to be about his Father's busi- 
ness; and that must have reminded Mary 
that Jesus was beginning to find out who 
he was, and what he had to do in the world. 
It must have carried her thoughts away from 
their quiet home life in Nazareth, to the great 



132 The Wicket-Gate. 

mission which the angels had announced Je- 
sus was to undertake: and his mother, who 
had been thinking only of her life at home, 
and bringing up her child there, must have 
been awakened to the true idea of the life 
of her boy who was, even then, beginning 
to feel that he must learn all that he could, 
so as to get to work about his Heavenly 
Father's business. 

Learning to think. This is the subject of 
our sermon to-day. 

This picture of the child Jesus sitting 
among the doctors, hearing them, and asking 
them questions, is the picture of every true 
boy and girl who wants to know what the 
truth is, and who wants to be of some use 
in the world, and be about our Heavenly 
Father's business, as Jesus was. 

I do not mean then, at this time, to speak 
more about this story of Jesus with the doc- 
tors. We might spend all our time in study- 
ing out the lessons of this scene. Though 
Jesus was the Son of God he had a human 



Learning to Think. 133 

soul and a human mind in a human body, 
and he had to grow in wisdom as well as in 
stature. 

And thus it comes to pass that at twelve 
years of age we see him beginning to grow: 
we see him learning to think. We watch 
him putting his foot on the first round of 
the ladder of knowledge, we find him "in 
the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, 
and asking them questions." 



I. 



First of all, then, if we would truly grow 
in wisdom as we grow in stature, and would 
learn to think for ourselves, we must know 
how to ask questions. Perhaps you may 
think, my dear children, that it is unneces- 
sary for any one to tell you this; that you 
constantly hear them at home saying, " Oh, 
don't ask so many questions ! " But then you 
know there was a time when your parents 
and teachers did just this same thing. 

There was a class once at school which 



134 The Wicket-Gate. 

kept asking the teacher so many questions 
that at last he said, after scolding them, 
"Boys, I wish you would remember that 
this is a school and not a debating society." 
So the boys made up their minds that they 
would not ask another question. The reci- 
tations went on like clock-work. Any boy 
who asked a question was sure to be pun- 
ished for it by the other boys at recess-time, 
and for a whole month the teacher wasn't 
asked a single question about geography, or 
arithmetic, or the history of Eneas in Vir- 
gil. At last the teacher laughed out in 
school and said, "Well, boys, this is worse 
than the other. You've got some conspiracy 
against me ; never mind what I said a month 
ago, ask me all the questions you want to." 
And the boys were right. We must ask 
questions. 

The only way to travel is to take nothing 
for granted, but to keep on asking questions ! 
And what is this life of ours, after all, but a 
journey, a travelling along over a path which 
our fathers have trodden before us? 



Learning to Think. 135 

"We are travelling home to God 
In the way the Fathers trod : 
They are happy now, and we 
Soon their happiness shall see." 

Some time ago I asked a ferryman whom I 
knew, at one of the slips in New York, to 
let me stand behind his window, where no 
one could see me, on purpose to hear the 
questions the people asked who came down 
to the boat. 

Here are some of the questions: 

"What time does the 7.15 train start?" 

Ans. " At seven-fifteen ! " 

"At seven-fifteen?" 

" Yes, ma'am ! " 

"Jane, he says it goes at seven-fifteen." 

"Well, ask him when it arrives." 

"Say! man! halloo there! — hi! what time! 
look here! what time does it arrive?" 

"Arrive where?" 

" W hy, arrive at Trenton ! " 

"9.30." 

"Nine-thirty, Jane." 

" Well, ask him if he thinks it will be on 



136 The Wicket-Gate. 

time; and ask him whether we had better 
wait, and if there isnt any earlier train ; 
and ask him if he saw a man go through 
here with a baby wrapped up in a red 
shawl." 

" Halloo there ! ticket - agent ! Hi ! — He 
won't answer me. How impolite some men 
are. I say ! Look here ! Man ! Here ! I 
want to ask you something ! — say ! — Did you 
see? — there now; he's talking to some one 
else." 

Now that is really about what I heard 
behind the window, only there was ever so 
much more of the same kind than I can tell 
you. 

" How do you stand this life ? " I said to 
the ticket-agent. 

" Stand it ! " he replied. " Why I stand it 
as eels stand skinning ; I get used to it. 
But only think," said he, "what we would 
all be saved if people only knew how to ash 
questions." 

Now that is the point. We ought to learn 
how to ask questions. We must not ask fool- 



Learning to Think. 137 

ish questions, or questions which we could 
easily answer ourselves, if we would only 
stop to think about them. We mustn't want 
to have our minds carried upstairs all the time; 
we mustn't be lazy, and get into the way of 
having other people think for us. We must 
think over our questions, and not trouble 
people to answer questions which we are too 
stupid or lazy to think out for ourselves. 

If that woman at the ticket-office had only 
thought that the 7.15 train must leave at 7.15 
o'clock, she would have saved one question 
at least. 

So, then, I believe, my dear children, in 
asking questions. Jesus did it when he was 
a boy, with the doctors in the Temple. Only 
I believe in knowing how to ask questions, 
and in stopping to collect our wits over what 
we are about, and in learning to think over 
our questions. 

For the only way to know is to seek to 
know: "Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and 
ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened 
unto you." 



138 The Wicket-Gate. 

It is wonderful, when we come to think 
about it, to find that the interrogation mark, 
this question idea, stands over so many forms 
of knowledge. You find it in your games 
and plays, in your enigmas and rebuses and 
conundrums, in your arithmetic with its puz- 
zling questions, and in algebra and geometry 
and logic. Why do these games and studies 
ask all these puzzling questions of us? Why 
do they make us stop and think? Because 
they are designed to teach us how to think; 
and if we would learn how to think rightly 
we must know how to ask questions. 

II. 

And then, secondly, if we want to learn to 
think we must know how to answer ques- 
tions. 

It's very easy work to ask questions, but 
sometimes it is hard work to answer them. 

Some children say, when they want to 
give a good reason for any thing, " Because." 
"Because what?" "Why, because." Now 
just to say " Because," is no reason. That 



Learning to Think. 139 

isn't any answer at all. Away over in India 
some of the old philosophers, in describing 
the earth, said that it was a plain and that 
it rested upon a great elephant. But the 
people asked, "What does the elephant rest 
upon?" " Oh," replied the philosophers, "the 
elephant stands upon an immense turtle." 
"Yes," said the people, "but what does the 
turtle rest upon ? " 

The philosophers didn't know this : and so 
they said that the turtle didn't rest much 
upon any thingT Now that wasn't answer- 
ing the questions which the people put to 
them. It was just like the children saying 
"Because," when they hadn't any reason to 
give. 

My dear children, it is a great thing to 
be able always to give a good reason for our 
course of conduct or belief. 

When the old patriarch Jacob was dying, 
he called his sons to his bedside to give them 
each a father's blessing. It was a difficult 
matter to find out a good character to some 
of these men. The most of them had been 



140 The Wicket-Gate. 

hard-hearted, cruel boys. When he came to 
bless Naphtali, all the old man could say 
was this: "Naphtali is a hind let loose: he 
giveth goodly words." A hind let loose ! 
Did you ever see a heifer tumbling about 
in a pasture lot? They prance about and 
whisk themselves all over the field, making 
the barn-fowls fly around and disturbing the 
sedate old cows, bothering the sheep and 
making the horses look up from time to 
time to see what they are up to. Well, 
that is the way many people act and talk; 
their tongues get loose and they wag like 
a heifer, or a hind let loose in a pasture lot ; 
they give goodly words as far as the sound 
goes, but there isn't much sense to what 
they say. 

St. Luke says, in his account of the child 
Jesus talking with the doctors in the Temple, 
that "all that heard him were astonished at 
his understanding and answers." 

And so, if we would learn to think, if 
we want to grow in wisdom as we grow 
in stature, we must know how to answer 



Learning to Think. 141 

rightly quite as well as how to ask ques- 
tions rightly. 

" Johnny," said one little boy to his fellow 
classmate in Sunday-school, "I would have 
been afraid to have gone up in that chariot 
of fire as Elijah did. Wouldn't you?" 

Johnny thought a while and then said, 
"No, Tom; not if I knew that the Lord 
was driving those horses." 

That was a good answer. 

St. Peter says, in one place in his first epis- 
tle, "Be ready always to give an answer 
to every man that asketh you, a reason of 
the hope that is in you, with meekness and 
fear." And St. Luke, when he wrote his 
gospel to Theophilus, said that he did it 
on purpose that he might "know the cer- 
tainty of those things" in which he had 
been instructed. 

It is a great comfort in life to be able to 
make a good answer, and to think before we 
speak. 

When the Dutch were in possession of 
New York, when it was New Amsterdam, 



142 The Wicket-Gate. 

before it had been taken by the English, old 
Wouter Van Twiller, the governor, went to 
inspect one of his forts. When his vessel 
anchored before the fort, and his flag was 
dipped to salute it, he was in a great rage, 
because the commander didn't return his sa- 
lute by firing off his guns in honor of his dis- 
tinguished visitor! So he sent for the com- 
mander, and demanded of him how he dared 
to show his superior such an insult. The 
poor commander gave twenty reasons why 
he failed to fire a salute. He didn't know 
that the governor was coming, he hadn't men 
enough to man the guns, and then, last of all, 
as his twentieth reason, he said he "had no 
powder." 

Now if that poor old Dutch commander 
had known how to give a good answer, he 
would have given his twentieth reason first, 
and then there would have been no need for 
the other nineteen. 

Knowing how to answer questions, is the 
second way of learning how to think. 



Learning to Think. 143 
III. 

Thirdly : If we want to learn how to think, 
we must be willing to know more. 

He that is willing to learn will be able 
to teach, but he who says, I know enough 
already, can never expect to grow. I re- 
member a fable about some mice who lived 
in a barn. The little mice heard the big 
mice talking about the dreadful farmer's boy 
and those awful creatures the dog and the 
cat. But they had never seen any of them. 
They never went away from home ; they 
lived all the time in the old grain box away 
up in the hay -mow; and after a while they 
got very careless and didn't believe there was 
any thing to be afraid of. At last one of 
them strayed away from home and got lost. 
All of a sudden the cat ran after her, and the 
dog chased the cat, and the farmer's boy 
threw a big stone at the dog; and the poor 
little mouse ran for its life, and just got home 
in time to save itself; but ever after that it 
believed that the world was a very large 






144 The Wicket-Gate. 

world, and that there were a great many- 
things to learn, of which it had been igno- 
rant before. 

And it is a very large world, my dear chil- 
dren, and if we are unwilling to learn, or if 
we think we know enough already, we will 
not grow in wisdom as we grow in years, in 
the way the boy Jesus did, when he was so 
eager to find out from the doctors in the 
Temple all that they could tell him. 

There was a great lawyer in England 
once, named Sir Edward Sugden. People 
wondered how he could remember so much, 
and why it was that he always knew the 
right point of law for the case in hand. One 
of his friends once asked him the secret of 
his success, and this was his answer: "I re- 
solved," said he, "when beginning to read 
law, to make every thing I acquired perfect- 
ly my own, and never to go to a second thing 
until I had entirely accomplished the first. 
Many of my competitors read as much in a 
day as I read in a week; but at the end of 
twelve months, my knowledge was as fresh 



Learning to Think. 145 

as on the day it was acquired, while theirs 
had glided away from their recollections." 

We must want to know more, and we 
must try to know more, if we want to learn 
how to think. Kemember this, my dear chil- 
dren. Learning how to think rightly, is the 
way to learn how to act rightly, for "as a 
man thinketh, so is he." 

There are two bad habits which keep us 
back from knowledge. They eat into our 
character just as moths eat into a garment. 
One of these bad habits is "Didn't think," 
the other is "Don't care." 

" Oh, Willie ! Willie ! " said his mother to 
a little boy who was sent to the apothecary's 
with a prescription, "where have you been? 
What have you been doing ? You have been 
gone three hours." 

" I didn't think," said the boy ; "I waited 
to see the Firemen's Procession." 

And all that time his poor little sister was 

growing worse with the disease, and the 

medicine which ought to have been given 

at once was too late, and the poor child died. 

10 



146 The Wicket-Gate. 

"Didn't think? killed Willie's little sister. 
Oh! but we ought to think; we ought to 
learn to think; we ought to know enough 
to teach us to think. We ought to tie a mill- 
stone around "Didn't think," and drown it in 
the depths of the sea. Dear children, don't 
get into the habit of saying " I didn't think." 
Suppose the engineer of a locomotive was 
to say "I didn't think," when he was look- 
ing out of his window and driving his en- 
gine; suppose the doctor should say "I didn't 
think," when he wrote the prescription; or 
suppose the druggist wasn't to think, when 
he made up the medicine; or the carpenter 
wasn't to think, when he built the house; 
what would become of us all? People must 
think : men and women must think, captains 
of vessels must think, generals in a battle 
must think, we must all think about what 
we are doing; it won't do to say, "I didn't 
think." 

Therefore, we must begin to think while 
we are children: we must think about the 
questions we ask, we must think about the 



Learning to Think. 147 

answers we give, and we must try to know 
more day by day. 

The other bad habit which keeps us from 
wanting and trying to know more, and which 
eats into our characters like a moth in a 
blanket, is "Don't care." 

What is to be done with a man who don't 
care for any person, place, or thing, — who 
don't care for himself, or his friends, or his 
family, or his God, — who don't care about 
his soul, or sin, or the hereafter? 

Every time I look into a pig-sty and see 
the great lubberly hogs lying deep in the 
mud, and rooting their noses in the swill- 
trough, I say to myself: "There are the fel- 
lows who don't care." What do they care 
for appearances, for decent habits, for a good 
clean reputation? What matters it to them 
what you think of them ? They dont care for 
any thing but food and mud. They are the 
true "Don't-care" fellows. 

Some time ago there was a man who failed 
in business, and who was arrested for forging 
a check. He was tried in court and sen- 



148 The Wicket-Gate. 

tenced to the state's prison. One of his old 
schoolmates went to see him in the court the 
day he was sentenced, and spoke to him as 
he was getting into the prison van along 
with the other prisoners. " Poor fellow," 
said his friend, "I am so sorry for you, 
Jones." 

" Oh," replied Jones, in his seedy clothes, 
"I don't care." 

" And this," — said his friend when he was 
telling the story to some others, — "this was 
just what he used to say when he was kept 
in and flogged at school, when he was set 
down at the tail of his class, and when he 
'flunked' over and over again, and was sent 
up to the principal and was suspended. He 
always used to say ' I don't care,' and the 
boys called him 'Don't-care Jones,'" 

Dear children, remember these two dread- 
ful habits, which keep you from increasing 
in knowledge, — these two big moth-millers 
which will eat into your character, — and have 
nothing to do with "Didn't think" and "Don't 
care" They will surely keep you back from 



Learning to Think. 149 

wanting to know more. You can not grow 
in wisdom as you grow in years if you dont 
think about things and dont care for them. 

IV. 

There is one other thing we must do if we 
want to learn to think rightly ; it is this : we 
must ivait to know more. 

I remember when I was a small boy at 
school, first studying my Latin Grammar, 
that it used to look very hard over tow- 
ards the end of the book. I used to won- 
der how I would ever be able to understand 
it, with all its long sentences and big words 
and heavy rules, that looked like lead. But 
I had to wait till I got there before I could 
understand it. And we must all learn to 
wait, in order to know some things, because 
we can not understand them now. 

A father takes his little boy to see some 
machinery. He shows him the boiler and 
the piston-rod and the walking beam and 
the steam-chest, and then the little fellow 



150 The Wicket-Gate. 

says: "But tell me how the fire and the water 
makes the wheels go around." The father 
tries to tell him about the steam, and the 
opening and shutting of the valves, but the 
little fellow can not understand it. "But 
how does the steam make the wheels go 
around?" he asks again. And then the fa- 
ther says, "My dear child, I can not explain 
it to you now, you will have to wait until 
you have learned more; then, when you are 
a big boy, you will understand it." 

And just in this same way Jesus said to 
his disciples, " I have many things to say 
unto you, but ye can not bear them now:" 
That is, the disciples were to wait until they 
had gone up into a higher class, until they 
had been taught more by the Spirit of God. 
And Moses, in one place, when he was speak- 
ing to the Israelites, said, " The secret things 
belong unto the Lord our God, but those 
things which are revealed, belong unto us 
and to our children." 

The doctors in the Temple couldn't tell the 
boy Jesus every thing. He asked questions 



Learning to Think. 151 

and answered questions, and sought to know 
things; but then, after all, he waited eighteen 
years to know more, before he began to 
preach to others and to teach them. And 
we must all be willing to wait if we would 
truly learn, for you know we read " he that 
belie veth shall not make haste." 

Listen to these lines about waiting: 

"A strong and mailed angel 
With eyes serene and deep, 
Unwearied and unwearying 
His patient watch doth keep. 

"A strong and maile'd angel, 
In the midnight and the day, 
Walking with me at my labor, 
Kneeling with me when I pray. 

"Low are the words he speaketh, 
'Young dreamer, God is great; 
'Tis glorious to suffer, 
'Tis majesty to wait!' 

"O, Angel of endurance! 
O, saintly and sublime ! 
White are the arme'd legions 
That tread the halls of time. 



152 The Wicket-Gate. 

"0, strong and mailed angel! 

Thy trailing robes I see. 

Read other souls the lesson 

So meekly read to me. 

"Still chant the same grand anthem, 
The beautiful and great : 
*'Tis glorious to suffer, 
'Tis majesty to wait.'" 

" Sitting in the midst of the doctors, both 
hearing them, and asking them questions." 

Here is a great lesson for us all from the 
boyhood of Jesus. 

This story teaches us that we must learn 
how to think for ourselves. And we must 
learn how to think in these four ways: 

First. We must know how to ask questions. 

Second. We must know how to answer 
them. 

Third. We must try to know more, and 

Fourth. We must wait to know more. 

And in this way we will be like Jesus 
Christ when he was a boy. We will in- 
crease in wisdom as in stature, and in favor 
with God and man. 



VI. 

31ttS0tt's llifrH 



SAMSON'S RIDDLE. 

"Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the 
strong came forth sweetness." — Judges xiv. 14. 

^■"HESE words were a riddle. You know 
^^ we all like riddles and conundrums and 
rebuses. 

All your children's papers and magazines 
have riddles and rebuses in them. Then 
there are Scripture puzzles and enigmas, 
for Sunday reading and puzzling; though 
it seems to me all this is very like the lit- 
tle boy who said, when his mother told him 
that he must not draw a picture of a horse on 
his slate on Sunday, that the horse he was 
drawing was taking the people to church. 
But to come back to the riddles. People al- 
ways have had them and always will have 
them. And one of the most curious things 
about it all is, that many of these riddles 



156 The Wicket-Gate. 

and conundrums which we have nowadays, 
are as old as the hills. Some have come 
from the philosophers of Egypt, in the land 
of the Sphynx and the pyramids, and some 
have come from King Solomon and the book 
of Proverbs, and some have descended to us 
all the way from the wise men of Greece. 
Solomon, you know, said that there was 
nothing new under the sun; and I haven't 
a doubt but that the little boys and girls 
of ancient Greece and Eome had their own 
nursery rhymes, very much like those of 
Mother Goose about "Humpty Dumpty," and 
"water, water, put out fire: fire, fire, burn 
stick," and " Eliza, Elizabeth, Betsey and 
Bess," who "went over the river to find a 
bird's nest." Why look at this story of ours, 
where our text is found to day. A war grew 
out of a riddle, just as in ancient history na- 
tions fought over the riddle-like sayings of 
the Grecian oracles. 

This is the story. Samson, the strongest 
man mentioned in the Bible, fell in love with 
a Philistine young woman, and he asked his 



Samson's Riddle. 157 

father and mother to go and get her for him. 
This isn't the way our young men go about 
getting a wife. In these days, very often, 
the young men feel themselves perfectly ade- 
quate to the occasion, and would never think 
of letting their parents do all the courting. 
But Samson's parents said that this young 
woman would not do. They said she was a 
Philistine, an enemy of their country, belong- 
ing to a nation the Israelites were forever 
fighting with ; and they made up their minds 
that it wasn't the thing, and would never do 
at all. But, like a great many other parents, 
all then: objections were in vain, and Samson 
had his own way and married the Philistine 
woman. 

Now it is very evident that Samson hated 
the Philistines with all his heart, though, per- 
haps, he had fallen in love with this girl, 
who might have captivated him with her 
pretty face. So he made an incident which 
happened to him on his way down to Tim- 
nath for the first time, an occasion for pro- 
voking the Philistine young men who came 



158 The Wicket-Gate. 

to the wedding afterwards. On his journey 
to see his lady-love, as he came near to the 
vineyards of Timnath, a young lion came out 
from the thickets and roared against him. 
Samson thereupon walked right up to the 
fellow and rent him, just as a man in a dry- 
goods store rips down a piece of muslin, with 
a great tearing noise. The Bible says he 
rent him " as he would have rent a kid, and 
he had nothing in his hand"; but we read, 
"he told not his father or his mother what 
he had done." I wonder how many of us 
would have kept that thing to ourselves. I 
rather think some of us would have told the 
first person we met, and would have gone for 
the nearest policeman, to bring the lion we 
had killed into the town. And I think we 
would hunt through the local items in the 
evening's newspaper, to see if a correct ac- 
count of the affair had been given. But 
Samson said nothing about it to any one, 
and some weeks afterwards, when he was 
going down to be married and to have his 
great wedding feast, when he came near to 



Samson's Riddle. 159 

the place he turned aside to see what had 
become of the lion's body. There it was, a 
rotting carcass; but down in one corner of 
the bones he saw some bees, and a honey- 
comb which they had built there. Then he 
took a lot of the honey in his hand, and ate 
some of it himself and gave the rest to his 
father and mother. Then they had the wed- 
ding and the great wedding feast, which 
lasted seven days, a long time for a party. 

Now just see how a riddle broke up a 
pleasant party, and separated Samson from 
his newly married wife, and brought on a 
war between two countries. 

There were thirty persons present at this 
feast, as Samson's companions. I suppose 
these people were all Philistines, probably 
young men and women. Well, when the 
feast had begun, what does Samson, who 
was always a great mischief-maker, do, but 
begin to bother his guests with a conundrum 
or a riddle. You know when a conundrum is 
started, people like to answer it. They don't 
like to appear stupid and feel compelled to 



160 The Wicket-Gate. 

say, "I give it up." It isn't pleasant to be 
considered dull. We all like to guess things 
right off, and be counted bright. This was 
what troubled these Philistines at Samson's 
party. They couldn't guess his riddle, they 
weren't smart enough ; and Samson, no doubt, 
let them see that he enjoyed catching them. 
I am sorry to say that Samson, though an 
Israelite, set them an example of betting. 
He said, " If ye can certainly declare it unto 
me within the seven days of the feast, and 
find it out, then I will give you thirty sheets 
and thirty change of garments: but if ye can 
not declare it me, then shall ye give me 
thirty sheets and thirty change of garments." 
This was a good haul Samson made on them, 
for his housekeeping purposes in his married 
life; and as he felt he had them, it began 
to make the Philistines as mad as hornets. 
This was the riddle: "Out of the eater came 
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth 
sweetness." Well ; they tried to find out 
this answer for three days, but all in vain. 
I suppose all this time Samson kept nag- 



Samson's Riddle. 161 

ging at them, and worrying them and teas- 
ing them, to know if they had found out his 
riddle, telling them that he was pretty sure 
to get the linen and the clothes, until the 
Philistines told Samson's wife that if she did 
not find out the riddle for them they would 
burn her up, and would burn down her fa- 
ther's house with fire. They said: "Have ye 
called us to take that we have," or "to im- 
poverish us ? " You see they didn't want to 
pay this wager, and then they were jealous 
of Samson. So the poor wife of Samson cried 
and took on for seven days, and had after all 
a very sad honeymoon of it. She begged 
Samson to tell her the answer to the riddle ; 
but he replied that he hadn't even told his 
mother and father, and he didn't mean to tell 
his wife. But she begged so hard that at 
last he told her, and she went right straight 
off to her friends saying, "I've got it! I've 
found it out!" 

So it came to pass that before the sun went 
down on the seventh day the men spoke up 
and said: 
11 



162 The Wicket-Gate. 

"We've guessed it, we've found it out! 
What is sweeter than honey, and what is 
stronger than a lion ! " 

"Yes," said Samson. "I know how you've 
found it out; my wife has told you; for if ye 
had not ploughed with my heifer ye had not 
found out my riddle ! " 

Then it was Samson's turn to get angry, 
and he went down to Ashkelon, a rich Phil- 
istine city, and deliberately killed thirty citi- 
zens there, like any highway robber, and 
took their sheets and garments, and gave 
them to the thirty guests at his table. Then 
he was done with his new friends and his 
new wife, and leaving them all at Timnath, 
he went back with his father and mother, 
and lived in their house like a great spoiled 
boy; and the man who had been Samson's 
groomsman, or " best man," married Samson's 
deserted wife. 

Now, my dear children, did you ever hear 
of such a story as this? Did you ever hear 
the like? Would you believe such a thing 
could ever happen, and happen in the Bi- 



Samson's Riddle. 163 

ble, among the Israelites, God's own chosen 
people ? 

A man goes down to a foreign city, and 
kills a lion and eats honey out of his dead 
body days afterwards ; gets married ; gives a 
great feast; proposes a riddle; offers a bet; 
makes the whole company angry ; gets angry 
himself; is given away by his wife; kills 
thirty men to pay his wager; leaves his wife 
and packs his trunk and goes back again to 
live at his father's house; — -just as if nothing 
had ever happened! This was indeed the 
dark ages in the history of the Israelites. 
Every man did that which was right in his 
own eyes. There was no king, and there 
were no good prophets, and the good judges 
were dead. 

Samson lived about 1,140 years before 
Christ ; over a hundred years before the 
days of Samuel and Saul and David. He 
was a great mischief-maker: a sort of hazing 
sophomore, looking out all the time for jokes 
to be played on people; and he was so full- 
blooded and careless about human life, that 



164 The Wicket-Gate. 

he thought no more of killing sixty or a hun- 
dred men than of shooting so many snipe or 
rabbits. 

But then this great, untamed giant, sniff- 
ing the blood of the Philistines wherever he 
went, was at last caught by them. They put 
his eyes out, and took away his strength, 
and finally made him their slave grinding 
in a mill, while they derided him. We all 
know how he died. His former strength was 
given back to him, and he died by bowing 
down the pillars of the Temple where the 
Philistines had met together to make sport of 
him; and 3,000 Philistines died with him in 
this his last act of destruction. 

The great musical composer, Handel, has 
written an oratorio about Samson; and you 
can hear in the last music of that piece, 
the crush of the building and the noise of 
the final catastrophe. John Milton, too, the 
pure English poet, has described Samson 
crying out in his blindness, in the poem 
called "Samson Agonistes," or Samson the 
Struggler. 



Samson's Riddle. 165 

"0 dark, dark, dark amid the blaze of noon, 
Irrecoverably dark; total eclipse 
Without all hope of day ! 
Oh first created beam and these great words, 
'Let there be light,' and light was over all. 
Why am I thus bereaved thy prime decree? 
The sun to me is dark, 
And silent as the moon 
When she deserts the night, 
Hid in her vacant interlunar cave." 

Our text to-day, then, is a riddle, and all 
riddles and conundrums and proverbs are 
based upon some truth, or upon some catch 
or perverted bit of truth. When the New 
England Hospital for "Women and Children 
had a fair three years ago, there was pub- 
lished a book full of conundrums, which 
was sold for the benefit of the hospital. I 
never saw so many conundrums together, 
and one feels tired enough after he has tried 
to guess the three hundred and thirtieth co- 
nundrum in that book. Then there are so 
many riddles in the world which puzzle our 
brains to try and find them out. There is 
a long one, in poetry, of nearly a hundred 



166 The Wicket-Gate. 

lines, and the answer is found in a cer- 
tain verse in one of the books of the Old 
Testament. 

It begins in this way: 

"Come and commiserate 
One who is blind, 
Hopeless and desolate, 
Void of a mind, 
Guileless and deceiving. 
Though unbelieving, 
Free from all sin. 

"By mortal adored, 
Still I ignored 
The world I was in. 
King Ptolemy's, Csesar's, 
Tiglote's, Pilesar's 
Birthdays are known — 
Wise men, astrologers, 
All are acknowledgers — 
Mine is unknown. 

"I ne'er had a father, 
Or mother, or brother. 
If I had either, 
Then they were neither 
Alive at my birth. 
Lodged in a palace, 



Samson's Riddle. 167 

Hunted by malice, 

I did not inherit, 

By lineage or merit, 

A spot in the earth. 

Compassed by dangers, 

Nothing could harm me; 

By foemen and strangers, 

Naught could alarm me. 

I saved, I destroyed, 

I blessed, I annoyed, 

Kept a crown for a prince, 

But had none of my own; 

Filled the place of a king. 

But ne'er had a throne. 

Kescued a warrior, 

Baffled a plot, 

Was what I seemed not, 

Seemed what I was not. 

Devoted to slaughter, 

A price on my head, 

A king's lovely daughter 

Watched by my bed. 

Though gently she nursed me, 

Fainting with fear, 

She never caressed me 

Nor wiped off a tear." 

And then, after a number of verses, it ends 
in this way: 



168 The Wicket-Gate. 

"I lived not, I died not, 
Yet tell yon, I must, 
That ages have passed 
Since I turned into dust. 

"This paradox whence? 
This squalor, this splendor? 
Say, am I a king? 
Or a silly pretender? 
Fathom this mystery 
Deep in my history. 
Am I a man? 
An angel supernal? 
A demon infernal? 
Solve it who can." 

Do any of you know the answer to this 
riddle? What is it? If you want to know, 
look at I Samuel, 19th chapter, 13th and 
following verses. Isn't that a wonderful 
riddle ? 

There is truth, then, under these riddles, 
though the truth is hidden from us, and puts 
on a false face, like those false faces we buy 
in the stores, and put on to frighten one 
another with. It's very hard to realize that 
there is a living face behind the false face. 



Samson's Riddle. 169 

And that is what makes it so hard to find out 
the true answer to these riddles. But there 
is truth to them all! Look, for instance, at 
some of our well-known proverbs. "Birds of 
a feather flock together." This means that 
people who like each other, because they are 
alike will keep together. "There's as good 
fish in the sea as ever was caught." This 
means that there are other places and other 
people beside the set that we go with. "A 
stitch in time saves nine," "A bird in the 
hand is worth two in the bush," "Make hay 
while the sun shines," are all proverbs which 
have a clear and simple meaning; and we 
know how many more there are of the same 
sort, when we sit down to play proverbs. 

But now what does Samson's riddle mean: 
" Out of the eater came forth meat, and out 
of the strong came forth sweetness ? " 

I suppose the thirty young Philistines who 
were Samson's guests at the wedding feast 
at Timnath, puzzled their heads over this 
thing, and kept saying to themselves, "Out 
of the eater — out of the eater. What does 



170 The Wicket-Gate. 

that mean? Came forth meat. How could 
meat come out of an eater ? What does the 
man mean? And out of the strong — the 
strong what? What is the strong? And 
out of the strong came forth sweetness. 
What does that mean? Who can guess it?" 

And I suppose they kept nudging each 
other and saying to themselves, when they 
came to the table, "Say, have you found it 
out yet?" And then, no doubt, one would 
raise his eyebrows at another across the ta- 
ble, and the man who was asked in this way, 
would frown back and nod his head, as much 
as to say, "No, sir; don't ask me!" 

Well, my dear children, I don't want to 
tease you any longer, as Samson teased his 
guests at the wedding, and so I will tell you 
plainly what I think this riddle means, and 
what it teaches us. Of course, to Samson it 
only meant a dead lion with a swarm of bees 
in it ; but he put this fact in such a way, by 
the words of his riddle, that the dead lion 
and the living bees become a sort of proverb, 
with a deeper meaning to it. 



Samson's Riddle. 171 

I think, then, this riddle teaches us two 
truths. They are these: 

Destroyers can become sustainers, and 
Strength can be turned into siveetness. 



First of all, I said, Destroyers can become 
sustainers. 

Now this sounds very heavy, I know. It 
reads like some of the books on political 
economy, or the science of civilization. But 
we can soon crack it up into little bits of 
truth, as we do when we tap a big piece of 
soft coal on the hearth, with the poker, and 
it crackles into little bits and burns. Some 
time ago a German scholar, who was very 
poor (not a very poor scholar), said to me 
when he was explaining, in broken English, 
his poverty, "Ah me! I am verra poor; I 
have one wife and six leetle boys to support, 
and zay all hang on to me. Zay are all 
consumers; not one of zem is a producer." 
What the poor man meant by this was, that 



172 The Wicket-Gate. 

they all depended upon him to make a living 
for them; none of them did any thing for 
themselves. They were all consumers, or 
destroyers of food; none of them were pro- 
ducers, or sustainers. 

I tell you, my dear children, it's a great 
thing to be able to become sustainers and 
help along, instead of all the time living off 
of other people. St. Paul told his converts 
that he was unwilling to become burdensome 
to any of them, and so he worked at tent- 
making when he was short of money, instead 
of going about with a long face and a sub- 
scription paper, saying that they hadn't paid 
him his salary, and that if his travelling ex- 
penses were not paid he wouldn't go to Cor- 
inth or Ephesus any more. This being a 
minister only to be supported, or merely for 
the sake of getting a living, is the poorest 
work in the world. It won't stand in the 
day of trial. Our Saviour said that the 
"hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling." 

There is a time in our lives, then, and it 
comes to some of us earlier than to others, 



Samson's Riddle. 173 

when we ought to change from being mere 
destroyers, or consumers, into sustainers and 
producers. "Out of the eater" there ought 
to "come forth meat." I know to-day a very 
celebrated doctor of divinity who, when he 
was a young man studying for the ministry, 
taught in a night-school, so that he might 
help his father, who was a country clergy- 
man, to educate the younger children. I 
knew and loved a dear fellow-student for 
the ministry, who wrote for magazines and 
took some pupils, on purpose to educate at 
college the son of a man who never could 
have sent his boy to college. And I have 
known young ladies who, instead of crying 
over lost fortunes and changes in their fam- 
ily affairs, have turned to, like brave girls, 
and have taught music and drawing, and 
copied lawyers' documents, so that all the 
load might not come upon their poor bro- 
ken-spirited parents. 

God be praised, my dear children, for all 
this brave and busy strength of character, 
which can turn deadness into activity, and 



174 The Wicket-Gate. 

can make a swarm of busy bees, each with 
his own little store of food, come out of and 
take the place of some once strong lion who 
has been killed by a passing business freak, 
or some Samson-like mischief-maker. 

What you boys and girls must remember 
above every thing else is, that you must never 
he ashamed to ivork, that you must never be 
ashamed of any thing in this world but sin, 
that you mustn't always hang upon your 
parents and depend upon them, but that 
you ought to be ready and willing to do 
whatever you can yourself to be helpful to 
those at home, so that you may be like the 
busy bees, who made honey; and not like 
the lion, who is a great eater, or consumer, 
and goes about all the time looking after 
food. 

And then this first lesson has another side 
to it. We do love to destroy things. Some 
people have what the phrenologists, who ex- 
amine heads, call the "bump of destructive- 
ness." Some people break chairs and china 
and glass tumblers, and use up their clothes 



Samson's Riddle. 175 

fearfully; while other people are very care- 
ful, and never think of breaking things. 

" He's dreadful hard on his clothes, sir," is 
what a poor woman once said to me when I 
was asking her if she didn't think she was 
coming too often to me for shoes. "Why," 
she went on, " John can't set wunst into his 
Sunday clothes for a whole day without their 
being all wriggled up and mussed, while Ann 
Eliza, over there, always looks as if she had 
come right out of the bandbox ! " 

Now there is no use of denying the fact, 
my dear children, that we have got this love 
of destroying things, this destructiveness, as 
it is called, within us, and we must try and 
overcome it. Some children like to break 
their toys and tear their books, and pick 
flowers apart and kill insects. I believe this 
destructiveness comes, after all we may say 
about it, from the devil. He is called, in 
the Kevelation of St. John, Apollyon the de- 
stroyer. I remember a book once that tried 
to prove that Napoleon's name was taken 
from Apollyon, because he was such a great 



176 The Wicket-Gate. 

destroyer. It is God-like to create and to 
build up; it is devil-like to destroy. It is 
easy enough to go about burning houses and 
tearing up flowers and killing animals; but 
how hard it is to create that which we have 
destroyed. 

Think of the French Revolution ; think of 
the Commune in Paris eight years ago. Pal- 
aces were destroyed, citizens were shot, mo- 
ney was wasted, whole streets were burned 
down by blazing petroleum cars, and all for 
nothing. Paris was like a city full of lions, 
which were destroyers, going about to de- 
vour whatever they could find. Alexander 
the Great, Hannibal, Attila the Scourge of 
God, as he was called, Tamerlane, Napoleon, 
Frederick, Charles XII., were great destroyers. 

One time in the history of our Lord when 
he was upon earth, James and John wanted 
to bring down fire upon a certain Samaritan 
village, because they did not seem disposed 
to welcome them; but Jesus rebuked them 
and called them Boanerges, "the sons of 
thunder," and said that he came not to de- 



Samson's Riddle. 177 

stroy but to fulfil; and that his meat was 
to do the will of him that sent him. 

But even our natural love of destruction 
can be changed into a love of creation. 
Look at St. Paul. He wanted to destroy 
the Christian Church, but God changed his 
nature, and killed the old lion in him, and 
"out of the eater there came forth meat." 



II. 



There is one other lesson this riddle teaches 
us. It is this : Strength can be turned into 
sweetness. 

This lion, which had only lived to eat 
other animals, and to destroy life wherever 
he could find it, became, when he was dead, 
the home for some little insects, which went 
about finding sweets among the flowers and 
bringing them home to the hive. The lion's 
strength was gone, and in the place of it 
there was the bee's sweetness. 

It isn't very often, my dear children, that 
we see strength and sweetness combined. 
12 



178 The Wicket-Gate. 

You see it sometimes among trained ani- 
mals, such as dogs and horses. I have seen 
a little bit of a boy riding a great big horse — 
and the horse was just as gentle as a kit- 
ten. But when we have power and are very 
strong, we are apt to be rough and harsh. 
And it has been because certain people in the 
Christian Church have forgotten about the 
gentleness of Jesus, and have only thought 
of him as the Judge of the world, that they 
have exalted the Virgin Mary with power, 
and have prayed to her in her sweetness and 
gentleness to intercede with her divine Son 
on their behalf. 

David says, in one place, speaking of 
God, " Thy gentleness hath made me great." 
Think of the gentleness of God, who is 
omnipotent. 

When the English king, Edward III., cap- 
tured the city of Calais in France, he was so 
angry with the citizens for holding out so 
long, that he threatened to burn the city and 
kill the inhabitants. 

Thereupon six of the principal citizens, the 



- 




THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS AND KING EDWARD III. 
W. Gate. p. 178 



Samson's Riddle. 179 

burgomasters, or aldermen, went before the 
king with halters around their necks, beg- 
ging him to hang them, but to spare the city. 
The king was for taking them at their word, 
and would have had them dangling in a few 
minutes from the nearest tree, but Edward's 
wife, Philippa, the queen, interceded for them 
and begged them off. 

And in very much the same way we all 
need to have around us gentle, kind influ- 
ences, to make us sweet and tender, and to 
keep our strength, or even our healthfulness, 
from becoming harsh and rough. Every man 
is the better for a true, pure wife's influence 
over him, and the boys of a family will never 
know until they have grown up, and are 
alone and away from home, how very much 
they have been benefited by the influence 
of their little sisters upon them. 

"Out of the eater came forth meat, and 
out of the strong came forth sweetness." 

Destroyers can become sustainers, and 
strength can be turned into sweetness. 



180 The Wicket-Gate, 

These are the two lessons we learn from 
Samson's riddle. 

Pray to God, my dear children, through Je- 
sus Christ, that you may become of use in the 
world, and that you may be tender as well 
as strong, for sweetness without strength is 
weak, and strength without sweetness is in- 
complete ; but sweetness and strength is what 
God wants in the life and character of all his 
children. 

Jesus was called the Lion of the tribe of 
Judah, and yet he is the Lamb of God, who 
came to take away the sins of the world. 



VII. 

Doing ^gronir. 



RUNNING AGROUND. 

"And falling into a place where two seas met, they ran 
the ship aground." — Acts xxvii. 41. 

Qj^YEKE you ever on board a ship that ran 
^&*^v aground ? If yon never were, let me 
tell yon how it feels. Once on the Missis- 
sippi Kiver, once on the North Eiver, and 
once in Martha's Vineyard, I have been on 
board a boat which has got upon some bar 
and has stuck fast there. Each time that I 
have got aground it has been in the night, 
and it has taken until noon the next day 
for the steamboat to get off the mud-bank, 
and to go upon her way again. One night 
when I was coming down from Albany to 
New York, all of a sudden the machinery 
stopped. Then I felt the bottom of the boat 
scraping on the bed of the river, just as a 



184 The Wicket-Gate. 

row-boat scrapes upon the sand, when it 
lands upon the beach. It was a foggy night, 
but when we were up on deck we could see 
five or six other steamers which were in the 
same predicament. They were blowing off 
steam, and were tugging and straining to get 
away from the sand-bar. If you have ever 
seen a dozen flies stuck in molasses, or upon 
the " catch -em -alive -o," sticky paper, you 
have seen a picture of ships that have run 
aground. 

Now there is only one of two things to 
do when a ship has run aground: 

First. We can throw the cargo overboard. 
This will lighten the boat and let her float 
off; but then, think what an awful waste it 
is to destroy a whole cargo. Or, 

Second. We can wait for a rise of the tide, 
in hopes that when it comes it will float our 
vessel. But, perhaps, even this will not lift 
us far enough. 

So that you see, in any case, it is a bad 
thing to run aground. 

Now in this story where our text is found, 



Running Aground. 185 

we have given to us a full description of St. 
Paul's shipwreck at sea. 

He was being carried as a prisoner to 
Rome, having appealed to the Emperor Nero 
for protection from the decision of Felix and 
Festus ; just as in these days a man may ap- 
peal from the decision of a judge in any 
court, and may carry the matter up to the 
Supreme Court. 

There were soldiers to keep him, and a 
centurion or captain to direct the Roman 
soldiers, and altogether there was a large 
party on board. If you will read the twen- 
ty-seventh chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles, you will see for yourselves what a long 
and tempestuous voyage they had, and how 
many adventures they met with, on their 
long and stormy journey to Rome. 

St. Paul told the captain of the vessel, be- 
forehand, that they would have a long and 
stormy voyage, and that they had better not 
set sail from Crete. But the captain thought 
that St. Paul was only a poor landsman who 
knew nothing about sailing, and only a Ro- 



186 The Wicket-Gate. 

man prisoner, whose opinion was not worth 
consulting, and so he set out on the voyage. 
Then they ran into a furious gale, and 
were tossed up and down the Mediterranean. 
It is interesting to notice what they did in 
this heavy blow. It lasted over fourteen 
days, and at last they gave up all hope of 
their lives. They put ropes and chains under 
the vessel to keep her from going to pieces, 
and they cast four anchors out of the stern, 
but it was all of no use. The great, heavy, 
lumbering grain vessel was filled with water 
and seemed to be settling down, and the 
sailors began to get into the life-boats to 
save themselves, when St. Paul said to the 
captain, or centurion, " Except these abide in 
the ship, ye can not be saved." This was a 
selfish, cowardly sort of thing for the sailors 
to do — this making for the boats — to save 
their own lives. I remember one time when 
I was on this same Mediterranean Sea, com- 
ing up from Naples to Genoa, that we were 
in a heavy fog, and were run into by a large 
vessel, and were cut down to the water's 



Running Aground. 187 

edge. The vessel was filled with Italian sol- 
diers. It was a terribly dark and stormy 
night, and we were all upon deck, wonder- 
ing what would corne next, when all of a 
sudden the Italian soldiers seized the boats 
and began to go off in them. If the vessel 
had gone down we would all have been 
drowned like rats in a cage, for we had no 
means of escape left us. Well, just in this 
same way, the sailors on this vessel where 
St. Paul was, seized the boats, and were 
making off and were leaving the ships, when 
the apostle stopped them, and told the cap- 
tain that he must save the boats and not let 
the sailors go. 

At last, after they had listened to St. Paul's 
cheering words of hope, and had heeded his 
advice, and had partaken of some food, they 
threw out their cargo of wheat, and hoisted 
the mainsail, and let go the rudder-bands, 
and made for the shore, to beach the boat, 
and then strike out for the land. And then 
the words of our text occur: "And falling 
into a place where two seas met, they ran 



188 The Wicket-Gate. 

the ship aground; and the fore part stuck 
fast and remained unmovable, but the hind- 
er part was broken with the violence of the 
waves." Then some of the soldiers, — what 
mean, selfish fellows they were, — proposed 
that they should kill Paul and the other pris- 
oners, for fear they would escape when they 
got to land, and would run away as fast as 
their legs could carry them. But the cen- 
turion who had charge of the prisoners and 
the soldiers wanted to save Paul, so he gave 
command that they who could swim should 
go first to lead the way, and that the others 
should follow after as well as they could. So 
the brave ones who could swim struck out 
first for the shore, and the others followed: 
" Some on boards, and some on broken pieces 
of the ship. And so it came to pass that 
they escaped all safe to land." 

This is the story of St. Paul's shipwreck 
as given so graphically in the twenty-seventh 
chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles. Read it for yourselves, in your own Bi- 
bles, and you will see how wonderfully it is 



Running Aground. 189 

there described. We can see it all for our- 
selves ! There is the old stranded ship, with 
the surf breaking over her; there are the 
swimmers making their way through the 
waves; there are the rest of the party cling- 
ing on to masts and spars of the vessel, and 
all landing safe and sound on the beach ; and, 
last of all, we see the barbarous people of 
the island on which they had struck, the 
island of Melita, coming down to the help 
of the poor, shipwrecked party, and helping 
them to make a fire on the beach to warm 
themselves and dry their wet clothes. 

We can see Paul hurrying about to get a 
bundle of sticks to make a fire with, and 
shaking off the snake which came out of the 
sticks into the fire; and away off on the 
sand-bar we can see the old ship knocked 
by the waves and going to pieces, on that 
spot on which she had run aground, where 
the two seas met; just as the steamer Huron 
went ashore the other night in the gale, 
down on the North Carolina shore by Kitty 
Hawk. 



190 The Wicket-Gate. 

"Running aground" This is our subject 
to-day. 

Now it's a bad thing to run aground 
with a vessel ! It's a sad sight to see some 
grand vessel stranded on the rocks, or on 
the beach, and going to pieces there when 
all the time she ought to be sailing free 
over the ocean. 

But, my dear children, I'll tell you what is 
a sadder sight than to see a ship aground. 
It is to see a human soul stranded and pow- 
erless; it is to see a nature which ought 
to be sailing along over the Sea of Time 
to Heaven, stuck fast in the things of this 
world; in some bad habit, or course of life, 
which holds the soul fast, so that it is like a 
ship aground, and can not move forward. 

Here we are, then, trying to make our way 
through this world, just as a ship beats out of 
a harbor, and sails on the ocean, and enters 
another harbor. There are rocks and bars 
and sand-banks and breakers around us at 
every turn. There are evil habits in our 
soul, and our natures are weak and sinful, 



Running Aground. 191 

just like a leaky ship, and there are great 
and terrible temptations around ns all. 

St." Paul says, in one place, that we must 
through much tribulation enter into the king- 
dom of heaven. It seems as if this stormy 
voyage of St. Paul on the Mediterranean Sea, 
was in some respects very much like our voy- 
age of life. We don't know what is before us 
in life; we don't know what storms are to 
break upon us; we don't know what our voy- 
age is to be like. What, then, shall we do, 
to keep ourselves from running aground, and 
sticking fast and breaking in pieces? 

We must do these four things: 



I. 



First of all, if we would avoid running 
aground, we must keep a steady course. 

How often, on board a steamer that is go- 
ing out to sea, down the intricate channel of 
some harbor, we hear that word of command 
given by the pilot on the wheel-house — 
"steady" St. James says, in his epistle, that 



192 The Wicket-Gate. 

if we would receive the reward of our prayers 
we must ask with a steady faith, "nothing 
wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave 
of the sea driven with the wind and tossed." 
In other words, if we want to keep on the 
direct way towards God and heaven, we must 
be willing and ready to steer a steady course, 
not turning to the right hand or to the left. 

The pilot of a vessel, you know, can not go 
by any course he pleases; he must steer by 
his chart and must keep in the true channel. 
If he tries any experiments, or disobeys the 
cautions of his chart and sails on the wrong 
side of the buoys, he must be prepared to get 
into trouble by surely running aground. 

Many a time I have gone down Boston 
harbor with the ocean steamers, and have 
watched the pilot on the wheelhouse, and the 
helmsmen in the steering-room. The pilot 
gives the signal, and a bell is rung to the 
man in the steering-house, and an indicator 
marks upon a dial plate the words "star- 
board," "port," "steady." And in this way 
the great, majestic steamer, minding her helm 



Running Aground. 193 

and the word of the pilot, keeps her course 
according to the chart and keeps from run- 
ning aground. But the little fellows, — the 
sail-boats and sloops and light weights, — run 
across the harbor; because, since they don't 
draw much water, they can run pretty much 
wherever they choose. 

Some time ago, down in the Chesapeake 
Bay, the captain of an oyster shallop was 
going up the harbor to Norfolk after oys- 
ters. When he went down below, he called 
a colored man he had on board, who was a 
landsman and didn't know any thing about 
sailing, to take the helm. 

"Now, Jim," said the captain, "do you see 
that bright star right in front of the fore- 
mast ? " 

"Yes, massah," replied Jim. "You mean 
dat ar bright fellow in front?" 

"Yes," said the captain, "that bright star 
up there that looks like a cat's eye in the 
dark. Well, now keep that star right in 
front of you all the time, steer by that star, 
and all will go well. Now, then, I'm going 



194 The Wicket-Gate. 

down below, and be sure you keep her 
steady." 

"Yes, sah," replied the colored man, "you 
trust Dandy Jim from North Caroline." 

So the captain went down below for the 
dog-watch and took his nap. Meanwhile 
Jim got tired of holding on to the tiller, and 
went forward to look at something shining 
there, over the bow of the boat, when all of 
a sudden the boat gave a lunge, and the sails 
gibed over, and as Jim was trying to get 
things straight on deck, up came the captain 
to see how things were going on. 

"Halloo, Jim," he cried, "what are you 
about? Where are you steering her to? 
Why here's that star I told you to keep right 
in front of the mainmast, away behind our 
stern." 

"Bless um heart, massah," said Jim, "dat's 
nothing; we've sailed by him an hour ago." 

And very much in this same way, my chil- 
dren, we trine with the helm, and let go the 
tiller, for the sake of looking at something 
shining around us, and forget to keep our 



Running Aground. 195 

eyes ever looking steadily at the star we are 
to steer by, until we get ont of our course al- 
together. There are many people who think, 
with this colored man on the oyster boat in 
the Chesapeake, that they have sailed far 
away past the star they ought to steer by, 
when all the while they have only turned 
their back upon it, and are sailing in the op- 
posite direction. Some boys, when they grow 
up, think it is not worth their trouble to keep 
the star in front of the foremast; they don't 
read their Bibles, which is like consulting the 
chart, and they don't look out for the light 
ahead; and thus their course is a crooked one, 
something like the way a fly flies, and before 
they know it they will run the ship aground, 
and will become stuck fast and remain un- 
movable. 

The ancients used to talk a great deal 
about sailing between Scylla and Charybdis. 
These were two great difficulties in the Med- 
iterranean Sea, near Sicily. One was a rock, 
and the other was a whirlpool, and at times, 
when the sailors would try to avoid the one 



196 The Wicket-Gate. 

danger they would fall into the other; and 
in this way it has become a proverb, that in 
avoiding Scylla we may fall into Charybdis. 

And then, too, in trying to be Christians, 
we must keep a steady course, lest we run 
aground on truths which are only half truths. 

There was a ferryman once, away up in 
Canada, who used to row people over the 
St. Lawrence River at a certain place. He 
was an old hunter and trapper, and when 
the English missionaries came out there he 
became a Christian. Sometimes he used to 
have long arguments and talks with the 
people he carried over. There was one old 
hunter up there who, when he became a 
Christian, was very much troubled about 
the doctrine of faith and works. He didn't 
know which he ought to use, faith or works. 
Martin, the ferryman, used to hear his old 
companion talking in this way as he rowed 
him over the river, and he thought he would 
teach him a lesson. So he had his two oars 
painted, one with the word " faith," and 
the other with the word "works." Then 



Running Aground. 197 

the next time his friend came to be carried 
over the ferry, when he got well out on the 
stream, he dropped one oar and pulled on 
the other. 

"What are you doing?" asked the trapper. 

"I'm holding on to works alone," replied 
Martin 

" Pull on the other oar," cried the trapper, 
" we're only going round and round. We're 
not going forward one bit." 

So Martin dropped the oar marked "works" 
and pulled on the oar marked " faith." 

" Hold on," cried the trapper, " now you're 
wrong, too. See, you're going round and 
round in the opposite direction. Pull with 
both oars." 

"Well, now," replied Martin, "do you the 
same; have faith and use works, and go 
straight forward; don't go round and round 
with one oar only." 

Thus it is with us, my dear children. 
We must keep a steady course if we would 
keep from running aground. We must pull 
straight forward. This is our first lesson. 



198 The Wicket-Gate. 

II. 

Secondly : If we would keep from run- 
ning aground we must know our soundings. 
When that splendid steamer of the White 
Star Line, the Atlantic, went ashore on the 
coast of Nova Scotia a few years ago, it was 
all because the captain didn't know where 
he was; he didn't take enough soundings; 
the lead wasn't dropped eveiy few minutes; 
he thought he was further out at sea than he 
really was, and there that splendid steamer, 
with all on board, went bang up upon the 
rocks, with a full head of steam on, just as 
if she was well out at sea. 

My dear children, we must learn to know 
just where we are ; just how far, or how near, 
we are to the rocks and headlands of danger. 
We must know ourselves ; we must know our 
own hearts; we must sound ourselves, exam- 
ine ourselves, and look into our own souls, to 
find out where we stand. " If we say that 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and 
the truth is not in us." AVe are on danger- 



Running Aground. 199 

ous ground without knowing it. How often 
we read in fairy stories of enchanted ground, 
where nothing could hurt people ; and of 
dangerous ground, where they were in great 
need of being careful, for fear they might be 
caught by evil ones. Dangerous ground ! 
Oh, my dear children, there is a great deal 
of this in the world; it is around us at 
every turn. We are like sailors trying to 
beat up an intricate harbor. We must know 
the chart, and mind the pilot, and keep in- 
side of the buoys; and we must throw the 
lead overboard and sound often, to know 
where we really are. 

George Herbert, the dear old English poet, 
says in one of his poems, in his quaint way : 

"By all means use sometime to be alone ; 

Salute thyself ; see what thy soul dost wear : 
Dare to look in thy chest— for 'tis thine own — 
And tumble up and down what thou findest there." 

He calls our soul a trunk, a chest, like a 
sailor's chest; and he tells us to open it and 
look into it, and not to be afraid to turn- 



200 The Wicket-Gate. 

ble our thoughts and feelings up and down 
there. 

Yes, my dear children, we must know our- 
selves; we must learn to look into our souls; 
we must throw the line down, and find out 
how we stand and what we are doing. We 
must know where we are, if we would keep 
from running aground. Some time ago, on 
the coast of Norway, an English barque was 
in a heavy fog. The captain didn't know 
where he was; he couldn't get a glimpse of 
the sun; he couldn't take an observation, 
and altogether the vessel was on dangerous 
ground. 

"Isn't it well mother don't know where we 
are ? " said the captain's little boy to him one 
morning at breakfast. 

"Yes, my son, it is," replied the father; 
"but it would be much better for all hands 
on board if we only knew where we were 
ourselves." 

My dear children, do you know just where 
you are ? Do you think you see your hearts 
as God sees them ? Do you know what your 



Running Aground. 201 

temptations are? Do you know what your 
evil habits are? Or are you all in a fog? 

If you want to keep from running aground 
and being dashed to pieces, you must know 
where you are; you must take your sound- 
ings. 

III. 

Thirdly: If we would avoid running aground, 
we must beware of cross-currents. It was 
these opposite tides which did the work for 
St. Paul's ship. One current took hold of the 
bow, and another took hold of the stern, and 
swung them around in opposite ways, and 
thus the ship was broken in pieces by these 
warring currents. Now we must be very 
careful in life about these opposite currents. 
For instance, here is a boy who wants to be 
a Christian and honor his father and mother, 
and yet he likes to go with certain boys 
whose influence over him isn't good, simply 
for the sake of the fun those boys have. He 
wants to do right, and yet he wants to have 
a good time with those boys he knows hia 



202 The Wicket-Gate. 

mother and father don't like him to go with ! 
He is like the ship in the place where two 
seas meet. 

Now we all meet these cross-currents in 
life; and oh, how hard it is to keep out of 
them ! We want to study our lessons, and 
yet we want to play ; we want to serve Jesus 
Christ, and yet we want to please ourselves; 
we want to keep from sin, and yet we like 
certain people who don't think it is wrong to 
do what we wouldn't dare to do; and it's a 
very hard matter to keep clear of these cur- 
rents and eddies, which swing us around out 
of our course. 

Dear children, I remember what it was, 
when a boy, to feel these currents running 
by me very rapidly; and oh, I know what it 
is now to feel their influence ! It is like the 
dangerous undertow which we feel sometimes 
when we bathe in the surf. But we must 
keep out of their way, or we will be like 
St. Paul in his voyage, and "falling into a 
place where two seas met," we will run our 
souls aground. 



Running Aground. 203 

You know there is a saying about " Hiding 
two horses, and coming to the ground be- 
tween them." It's a hard thing to ride two 
horses; to have a foot on each of them, and 
yet to be able to keep on at all. And it's 
very hard to keep our course straight and 
steady, if all the while we are tossed, first by 
one tide and then by the opposite one, and 
have our wills swung around all the while, 
first by one current and then wrenched about 
by another. Steady s tlie icord. Beware of 
these cross-currents. 

IV. 

And then lastly: If we would keep from 
running aground, we must trust our pilot. 
When the pilot comes on board a vessel he 
takes full command, and the captain has 
nothing whatever to say. Then the crew 
must mind not the old commander, but 
the new one. The man on the lookout 
and the man at the wheel must each obey 
the commands of the pilot. He has charge 
of the vessel now, and he alone will be 



204 The Wicket-Gate. 

answerable for her. And there must not 
be any disobedience on board. Every one 
must agree with the pilot. Some time ago 
a schooner was sailing along Long Island 
Sound. The captain and the mate didn't get 
on well together. At last, when the mate 
suggested to the captain that he should steer 
the boat in a certain direction, the captain 
got very angry and, swearing at the mate, 
said: 

" You go down and take care of your end 
of the vessel and I'll take care of mine." 

" All right," said the mate, and he went to 
the bow of the boat. Presently a splash was 
heard in the water, and the mate sang out: 
"Halloo, captain! my end of the boat is anch- 
ored. How is your end coming on?" 

Now we can't get on in this way, if we're 
trying to serve our Lord Jesus Christ. We 
mustn't try to manage our end of the boat. 
We must put our faith in our Pilot, and do 
what he bids us. When he comes into our 
souls we must give up the command to him. 
The old captain oughtn't to rule any longer. 



Running Aground. 205 

Some time ago I was visiting a physician, 
who was ill. He was waiting for the doctor 
to come. 

"Why, doctor," said I, "you're a physician 
yourself. Why don't you treat yourself with- 
out calling in another ? " 

"Ah," said he, "I'm sick now; I can't trust 
myself. I want to give myself up to anoth- 
er ; I have no faith in my own skill now, I'm 
so weak. This sickness has taken away all 
my trust in myself." 

And that was the only thing for the poor 
sick doctor to do. 

And, children, it's the only thing that we 
can do. You and I must give ourselves up 
to Jesus Christ our Saviour, and we must 
ask him to take charge of us. Yes, day and 
night we must pray for his help : when we're 
tired, when we're tempted, when we're naugh- 
ty, when every thing seems to go wrong, all 
we can do is to pray to Christ to come and 
take charge of our souls, just as the pilot 
comes on board the vessel and keeps it from 
running aground. Listen to this verse of a 



206 The Wicket-Gate. 

beautiful hymn to Christ, which the English 
poet Palgrave wrote for little children: 

"Be beside me in the night, 
Close by me till morning light; 
Make me gentle, kind, and true, 
Do what mother bids me do; 
Help and cheer me when I fret, 
And forgive when I forget." 

And now, in closing, let me say: Remem- 
ber these lessons. 

If we would keep from running aground 
on the snares and temptations of this life, 
we must do these four things: 

We must keep a steady course; we must 
know where we are; we must avoid cross- 
currents; and we must obey our Pilot. 

And if we do these things we will be 
brought at last to that haven where we 
would be, safe and sound, and not on boards 
and broken pieces of the ship, as St. Paul's 
companions did when they were shipwrecked 
and the vessel was run aground. 



VIII. 

images to Jerusalem. 



CARRIAGES TO JERUSALEM. 

"And after those days we took up our carriages, and 
•went up to Jerusalem." — Acts xxi. 15. 

y^ARRIAGES to Jerusalem ! This sounds 
^^ strangely. It reads as if the apostles 
were on a journey in those days, and having 
arrived at a depot or railway station, found 
some carriages awaiting them there, and 
took up their line of travel, and went on the 
rest of the way to their journey's end. It is 
very difficult for us to take these words lit- 
erally. How could the apostles take up their 
carriages; and what were their carriages to 
Jerusalem ? 

Now the difficulty disappears when we re- 
member that the word carriage, in the Bible, 
means baggage, packages, bundles ; or, as the 
English call it, "luggage." In the old Saxon, 
"luggage" was a word which meant some- 

14 



210 The Wicket-Gate. 

thing that had to be lugged or carried about. 
The word "lug" was from the Anglo-Saxon 
"geluggian," to drag by the hair, or to haul 
and tug at something very heavy. In the 
same way the word "carry" was derived 
from the old Saxon word "cyren," to turn or 
bear away; and the word "carriage" meant, 
originally, the act of carrying or transporta- 
tion, then the means of conveyance, and last 
of all, that which is carried. " Carriage " 
also means one's behavior, or deportment, — 
the way a person acts or carries himself, — 
and sometimes it means the management or 
carrying on of a business. 

But in the Bible the word always means 
the bundles, packages, or load that one has 
to carry. Here are some of the places where 
we find the word used with reference to car- 
rying bundles or burdens. " So they turned 
and departed, and put the little ones and the 
cattle and the carriage (or baggage) before 
them " (Judges xviii. 21). This was when 
the Danites robbed Micah, in the rough days 
of the judges. Then in the story of David's 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 211 

conflict with Goliath we read, that when he 
arrived at the camp of the soldiers of Saul, 
where his brothers were, he " left his carriage 
in the hands of the keeper of the carriage, 
and ran into the army and came and saluted 
his brethren " (1 Sam. xvii. 22). The prophet 
Isaiah, too, uses this same word to mean bag- 
gage, when he says, in speaking of the As- 
syrian invasion, "at Michmash he hath laid 
up his carriages" (Isa. x. 28). And again, 
when this same prophet Isaiah is showing 
that the idols of Babylon could not save the 
nation, while God saved his people, he be- 
gins that wonderful forty-sixth chapter with 
these words : " Bel boweth down ; Nebo stoop- 
eth; their idols were upon their beasts, and 
upon their cattle: your carriages were heavy 
laden; they are a burden to the weary beast." 
So then, when St. Luke says in this fif- 
teenth verse of the twenty-first chapter of 
the Acts, "We took up our carriages, and 
went up to Jerusalem," it doesn't mean that 
the apostles got into soft, easy - cushioned 
carriages, like our cabs and barouches of to- 



212 The Wicket-Gate. 

day, and were driven up along the turnpike 
from Caesarea to Jerusalem. It means just 
the opposite of this. It means that, instead 
of being carried over the difficulties in their 
way, they took up their difficulties, one by 
one, in their own hands, and went on their 
way towards Jerusalem. 

The carriages didn't take the apostles up; 
it was the apostles who stopped and took up 
their carriages: that is, their bundles, pack- 
ages, and loads. 

This was the way it came about. St. Paul 
was on his way back to Jerusalem after 
one of his long missionary expeditions. He 
wanted to be there in time for the Feast of 
Pentecost, but he couldn't help stopping over 
on the journey, to see the different churches 
which he had planted. When he was at Mi- 
letus he sent up to Ephesus for the elders 
of the church to come and see him. You 
will read about this in the last part of the 
twentieth chapter of the book of Acts. It 
is a very touching scene. After giving them 
a farewell message, he kneeled down with 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 213 

them on the beach, and prayed with them 
all. Then, we read, "They all wept sore, 
and fell on Paul's neck and kissed him, sor- 
rowing most of all for the words which he 
spake, that they should see his face no more." 
After this the vessel set sail, and after stop- 
ping at the different islands along the coast, 
the party arrived at Caasarea, and stayed at 
the house of Philip the Evangelist. Here 
they met a prophet named Agabus, who told 
St. Paul of a very unpleasant time ahead. 
"He took Paul's girdle and bound his own 
hands and feet, and said, Thus saith the 
Holy Ghost, so shall the Jews at Jerusalem 
bind the man that owneth this girdle, and 
shall deliver him into the hands of the Gen- 
tiles." Then they all begged St. Paul not to 
go up to Jerusalem, since this man Agabus 
had prophesied that there was going to be 
trouble and persecution there. 

But they couldn't frighten St. Paul away 
from his path of duty. He was not afraid of 
the lions in the way. He turned upon them 
and said, "What mean ye to weep and to 



214 The Wicket-Gate. 

break mine heart ? For I am ready not to be 
bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for 
the name of the Lord Jesus." So when they 
found that they could not turn the apostle 
from his resolution, they ceased, "saying, The 
will of the Lord be done." And then the 
words of our text appear, showing how St. 
Paul carried his point, and went straight on 
his way through the trouble that was in store 
for him. Instead of being carried out of his 
way, to avoid his duty and the danger that 
was in it, he took up his burdens and went 
straight ahead. "After those days," says St. 
Luke, "we took up our carriages, and went 
up to Jerusalem." The rest of the story came 
to pass according to the prophecy of the 
prophet Agabus. 

There was a terrible riot in Jerusalem, 
made by the Jews on account of St. Paul's 
preaching, and he was seized by the soldiers 
and carried off to the castle of Antonius, and 
afterwards was sent down to Caesarea under 
a military escort, to be brought before the 
Roman governor Felix. 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 215 

This, then, is the story of our text. Now 
let us come back to our subject, which is 
about — 

Carrying our own bundles. 

I. 

Well, then, the first thing we learn from 
this subject is this: We have all got bundles 
to carry. 

You know how it is in travelling. There 
are bundles and bags and packages which 
people take with them in their hands. There 
are a great many things which are hard to 
pack up in trunks. High hats, and ladies' 
bonnets, and umbrellas, and canary-birds in 
their cages, and babies, can not be packed 
up. We have to carry these in our hands. 

In England gentlemen have hat-boxes and 
ladies have bandboxes ; but here, in this 
country, men generally wear their hats and 
ladies their bonnets, so that these articles 
are carried by being worn. 

How many things there are for us to carry 



216 The Wicket-Gate. 

in this world ! First, when we are very lit- 
tle children, we carry our toys about with 
us wherever we go, and take them to bed 
with us when we go to sleep. Then, when 
we go to school we carry our books in straps 
and satchels, and the more books we can put 
together to carry to school, the bigger we 
think we are. Then, when we go to col- 
lege, we carry one or two neat little Latin 
and Greek books in our hands; and when we 
grow up, we carry things home to the fam- 
ily ; and I think he is a pretty poor kind of 
man who is ashamed to be seen with a bun- 
dle; who is afraid to take up his carriage, or 
package, for the children or the family, and 
go on his way towards his Jerusalem - like 
home. 

Then think how much there is for a ship 
to carry, or for an army to carry with it on 
its march. The word "impediment" comes 
from the Latin "impedimenta" or the bag- 
gage which an army used to have in the old 
Roman days.- There used to be so much to 
carry that the baggage was the great hin- 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 217 

drance, or impediment, to the march. Then, 
too, if yon have ever moved often from 
house to house, or from city to city, as 
we ministers do, you will learn that three 
moves are equal to one fire ; for the amount 
of things which are lost, mislaid, or broken, 
are almost the same as if the house had been 
burnt. But besides all these packages and 
bundles which we have to carry in our 
every-day life, we have duties and respon- 
sibilities to take up, which are just like bun- 
dles — big and little — which must be carried. 
When the old patriot Jacob was dying and 
blessing his sons, he said of one of them, 
"Issachar is a strong ass, crouching down 
between two burdens : and he bowed his 
shoulder to bear, and became a servant un- 
to tribute." In the Eastern countries they 
load their camels and horses with bags and 
boxes and bundles, just as here men load up 
a dray, or an express wagon. And this son, 
Issachar, Jacob said, was to be loaded down 
with burdens and cares and responsibilities. 
It does seem as if in this world some peo- 



218 The Wicket-Gate. 

pie had more than their share of bundles and 
duties to carry. Some people dodge their 
duties, and won't carry their own bundles, 
and are unlike St. Paul's company, who took 
up their packages and went up to Jerusa- 
lem. And then there are others who have 
very much to carry which don't belong to 
them. It is just like the wheelers and the 
leaders in a stage. Perhaps the "off leader" 
and the "near wheeler," as the driver calls 
them, have some sort of an understand- 
ing between themselves, — at least so it has 
often seemed to me, — by which the other 
poor horses do all the pulling, and the 
heaviest part of the work up-hill and on 
a level. 

Dear children, don't dodge your share of 
work. Don't let the other horses do all the 
pulling. Take up your share of the bundles, 
and the duties; and remember this first les- 
son of our subject, that in this world we have 
all got bundles to carry. 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 219 
II. 

The second lesson of our subject is this: 
Every man must carry his own burden. 

In St. Paul's epistle to the Galatians he 
says, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and 
thus fulfil the law of Christ." And then a 
few verses further on he says, "For every 
man shall bear his own burden." This means 
that we ought to try to help others who need 
our help, because, after all, when we have 
done our utmost to help them, every man 
will have enough to do to answer for himself. 

You know how it is when you are travel- 
ling in a large party; every body wants to 
help every other body, and yet, as it is, each 
one has something of his own to carry. 

Some time ago I was going down to Mount 
Desert, in Maine. Among the different par- 
ties on the boat, there were seven ladies, 
old enough to know better, and apparent- 
ly all of them unmarried, who had one poor 
young man to take care of them. He bought 
them their tickets, and checked their trunks, 



220 The Wicket-Gate. 

and did every thing for them, and moved, I 
should say, from eighteen to twenty -five bun- 
dles and packages from one end of the boat 
to the other, according to the view, and the 
way the sun was shining on those seven up- 
raised parasols. At last, when the boat ar- 
rived at Mount Desert, these seven ladies 
hurried off to the hotel, to secure good 
rooms, and left this unfortunate young man 
standing on the wooden pier, with a rampart 
of bags, shawl-bundles, and satchels around 
him. He was tall and thin, and his hat- 
ribbon was waving in the breeze, and at a 
distance he looked like a flag-staff in the 
middle of a fortification ! 

Now I wonder whether St. Paul and St. 
Luke, and the rest of the apostles, left their 
baggage for some one else in the party to 
carry, when they arrived at the wharf at 
Csesarea! Did they hurry off to get good 
rooms in the house of this old disciple of 
Cyprus, named Mnason, with whom they 
stopped? And do you suppose when they 
left his house, they left their bags about for 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 221 

him to gather up and send after them in a 
wagon ? Not a bit of it ! St. Paul was too 
self-reliant a man to do a thing like this. 
He never wanted other people to carry his 
bundles. He was a very helpful man. He 
was always able to take care of himself and 
then to help others. Besides this, he was a 
very courteous and polite man. He had been 
brought up well, and knew what good man- 
ners were. He quoted from one of the Gre- 
cian poets when he said in his epistle to the 
Corinthians, " Evil communications corrupt 
good manners." When he was shipwrecked 
on the island of Melita he fully appreciated 
the polite attentions of the chief citizen 
there, Publius, who, he says, "received us 
and lodged us three days courteously." 

In other words, St. Paul knew how to take 
the world, and the men and women in the 
world. He was a great leader of people. 
And the secret of his great success in life 
was this, that he was never above his work. 
He says he knew both how to be abased and 
how to abound; he could go on horseback, 



222 The Wicket-Gate. 

or he could go on foot. He could ride in a 
Eoman chariot and talk with Felix and Fes- 
tus and Agrippa and all the great men, and 
he could come down to poor Onesimus, the 
runaway slave, or to the jailer at Philippi, or 
to those poor women who were always found 
in the churches which he established. 

So, then, we read that the apostles carried 
their own bundles up to Jerusalem. They 
had just been on a long missionary journey 
over the Mediterranean Sea and over Greece 
and Asia Minor. They were on their way to 
attend this feast of the old Jewish Church at 
Jerusalem, and they wanted to go to the city 
and to their friends there in true missionary 
style. Like the pilgrim with his staff in his 
hand and his bag over his shoulder, these 
brave apostles walked along the highway 
towards Jerusalem. 

I think I can see them now. First, there 
were the companions whom they met at Cses- 
area, the friends of old Mnason from the 
island of Cyprus. Then, there were those 
friends of St. Paul whom we like, because 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 223 

we know they were so true to him, but of 
whom we know so very little: Sopater, a 
man from Berea, and Gaius, Tychichus, and 
Aristarchus, and Secundus. Then there were 
those two young disciples, Timothy and Ti- 
tus, who were full of their life-work, and 
were, no doubt, talking of their plans and 
of the work that was given to them, one at 
Ephesus and the other in the island of Crete. 
Then came St. Luke, the beloved physician, 
and the devoted friend and companion of the 
apostle Paul; no doubt even then talking 
with the apostle about what they were to do 
next. Last of all came the mules and beasts 
of burden with their drivers, bearing the 
tents and camp equipage, and all the things 
they had picked up on their way for the poor 
Christians at Jerusalem. 

I suppose St. Paul's companions who had 
witnessed some of the stormy events in his 
life, — when they had been in perils by water 
and in perils by land, in perils by robbers 
and in perils by their own countrymen, — 
couldn't help being anxious about this visit 



224 The Wicket-Gate. 

to Jerusalem, especially since the prophet 
Agabus had told them at Caesarea, when they 
landed there, after their voyage, that there 
was trouble ahead for St. Paul. Perhaps 
they held back a little ; perhaps they walked 
slowly along the road, and dreaded to turn 
the corner which showed them in the dis- 
tance the towers and minarets of Herod's 
palaces and fortresses; but St. Paul was not 
afraid. " The will of the Lord be done," was 
his motto; and I think we can almost feel 
the military haste and march of this com- 
pany, in these words by which St. Luke de- 
scribed this event: "And after those days 
we took up our carriages, and went up to 
Jerusalem." 

So, then, my dear children, don't let any 
of us be above carrying our own bundles 
and picking up our own duties. There are 
some things we can do for others; there are 
other things which every one must do for 
himself; — for, after all, every man must bear 
his own burden. 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 225 

III. 

The third lesson this subject teaches us is 
this: We must not be afraid of the difficul- 
ties in the way. 

It is one of the easiest things in the world 
to discourage people and to get discouraged. 
If you are going out fishing, and have got 
every thing ready, and are expecting to have 
a good time, what a dreadful thing it is to 
meet some boys on the way back, who laugh 
and wink at one another, and then tell you 
they hope you will have lots of bites, and 
no mosquitoes! 

If you are on some mountain climb, and 
have gone off collecting minerals or speci- 
mens of plants, or fern leaves, how discour- 
aging it is to have some one come back just 
as you are starting out and say, "Don't go; 
you won't find any thing." 

Why, my dear children, the world is full 

of these discouraging people. They keep 

saying "Dont " all the time. It is don't do 

this, and don't do that: don't go there, and 

15 



226 The Wicket-Gate. 

don't come here: don't try this thing, and 
don't try that. And it's a hard thing to keep 
one's will up in the face of all these difficul- 
ties and objections. See what St. Paul had 
to contend with. There were the elders at 
Miletus who said, "Don't leave us; oh, don't 
go away from Ephesus"; and there was Aga- 
bus at Cassarea, with the disciples there, who 
said, " Don't go up to Jerusalem ; there will 
be trouble there if you do. Please don't 
go." But St. Paul wasn't to be discouraged 
in this way. He put them all down, and 
triumphed over them, by his firm and reso- 
lute will, when he said: "What mean ye to 
weep and to break mine heart? for I am 
ready not to be bound only, but also to die 
at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus." 
That stopped them, and nothing but a firm, 
resolute will is of any avail in overcoming 
those who depress and discourage us so. 

In " Pilgrim's Progress," Bunyan describes 
Christian, in one place, as meeting with great 
difficulties in the way of his taking up his 
carriages and going on in his path to Jem- 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 227 

salem. Here is the way he describes it; it is 
the very picture of those who put difficulties 
in one's path. 

" Now when he was got up to the top of 
the hill, there came two men running amain : 
the name of the one was Timorous and of the 
other Mistrust: to whom Christian said, Sirs, 
what is the matter? You run the wrong 
way. Timorous answered that they were go- 
ing to the city of Zion, and had got up that 
difficult place: but, said he, the farther we 
go, the more danger we meet with, wherefore 
we turned, and are going back again. 

"Yes, said Mistrust, for just before us lie 
a couple of lions in the path, whether sleep- 
ing or waking we know not: and we could 
not think if we came within reach, but they 
would presently pull us in pieces. Then said 
Christian, you make me afraid; but whither 
shall I fly to be safe ? To go back is nothing 
but death : to go forward is fear of death and 
life everlasting beyond it. I will yet go for- 
ward! So Mistrust and Timorous ran down 
the hill and Christian went on his way." 



228 The Wicket-Gate. 

Now, then, my dear children, there are dif- 
ficulties and trials and duties and burdens in 
our way all the time. They are like the lions 
in the path, which frightened back Mistrust 
and Timorous. 

"There are briers besetting every path, 
Which call for patient care ; 
There is a cross in every lot, 

And an earnest need for prayer ; 
But a lowly heart that leans on thee 
Is happy anywhere." 

Shakespeare, when he is describing Lady 
Macbeth as striving to arouse her husband's 
will so that he may murder the old king 
Duncan, among the other names by which 
she taunts him, calls him this : "Infirm of 
purpose." How many of us are infirm of 
purpose! How many of us turn when we 
meet with discouragements and discouragers 
like Mistrust and Timorous ! How many of 
us would have said to Agabus at Cassarea, 
"Well, after all, perhaps you are right; it 
looks so very stormy ahead that we will un- 
pack our trunks and stay here at Caesarea 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 229 

awhile. It's so comfortable here. We won't 
take up our carriages and go up to Jerusalem 
just at present." 

Dear children, don't be infirm of purpose 
when you knoio you are right Don't be dis- 
couraged when you know it is your duty to 
go on in the way marked out for you. Don't 
be crowded back from your path of duty, 
because the discouraging people around you 
say, "It's no use, don't — don't go on your 
way to Jerusalem." Rise above it all and 
say with St. Paul, "What do you mean by 
all this sort of thing ? " and then take up your 
bundles as he did, and say " Good-by, Cassa- 
rea! good-by, poor old Agabus. You can't 
frighten me. We're going up to Jerusalem 
after all." 

IV. 

The fourth and last lesson this subject 
teaches us is, that rest comes at the end of 
the journey. 

It wasn't very long before St. Paul was 
back again at Csesarea, with a whole troop 



230 The Wicket-Gate. 

of Roman soldiers in charge of him. I sup- 
pose old Agabus frowned and looked very- 
wise and said, "Just as I expected; just 
what I told you, Paul ! " And it wasn't very 
long before St. Paul was on his way back to 
Rome to be tried before the emperor Nero. 
And the elders at Miletus probably nodded 
to each other and said, " Just what we said, 
you know." And then he was set free again, 
and was back in the old country of Syria 
once more, before he was taken finally to 
Rome to be beheaded ! His rest was a long 
way off, but it came at last, when he looked 
forward with such joy to it, and wrote to his 
young disciple and companion in travel, Tim- 
othy, and said: "I am now ready to be of- 
fered, and the time of my departure is at 
hand." You know that verse of the hymn 
we sometimes sing: 

"Rest comes at length, though life be long and dreary; 
The day must dawn and darksome night be past; 
All journeys end in welcome to the weary, 
And heaven, the heart's true home, will come at 
last." 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 231 

What a feeling of rest there is after a long 
walk, when we have been tramping for miles 
through the forests and down the mountain- 
sides, or along the cliffs of the sea-shore, on 
one of the first cool days of fall. How good 
it seems to sit before an open fire on the 
hearth, tired and sleepy, and gloAving all 
over with that feeling of health which comes 
from the stirred-up blood. We think of the 
day that is gone, and of all that we have 
done in it, and then we look forward to 
the new work of the coming day. 

Well, my dear children, I think that is 
the very picture of the rest of heaven, 
that rest which remaineth for the people of 
God. It isn't lazy rest we are to have, 
but healthful rest; rest that will fit us for 
the new duties of the other world. It is 
like the rest and the welcome St. Paul and 
his companions had when, after carrying 
their burdens up the high-road to the city's 
wall, they laid them down at last. For 
this is the way in which St. Luke de- 
scribes their arrival: "And when we were 



232 The Wicket-Gate. 

come to Jerusalem, the brethren received us 
gladly." 

Sainte-Aldegonde, the great leader of the 
Netherlander in their struggle for liberty, 
the man who carried on the work after Wil- 
liam of Orange died, had written upon his 
shield as his motto, "Bepos Ailleurs" "Rest 
elsewhere." 

The name of the state of Alabama means, 
" Here we may rest." When the first set- 
tlers in the South drove the Indians into 
their wildernesses and everglades, one of 
their chieftains took a party of his tribe 
miles and miles away from the white men 
and, driving his tent-pole into the ground, 
exclaimed, "Alabama," "Here we may rest." 
But, like a great many other people who 
drive their stakes firmly down into the soil 
of this world, he was mistaken. 

There is an old legend in church history 
which says that a Jewish teacher, named 
Rabbi Judah, and his brethren, the Seven 
Pillars of Wisdom, sat in the Temple on a 
feast day, disputing about rest. One said 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 233 

that it was to have attained sufficient wealth, 
yet without sin ; the second, it was fame and 
praise of all men ; the third, it was the pos- 
session of power to rale the state ; the fourth, 
that it consisted only in a happy home ; the 
fifth, that it must be in the old age of one 
who is rich, powerful, famous, surrounded by 
children's children; the sixth, that all these 
things were vain unless a man kept all the 
ritual law of Moses. Then Eabbi Judah said, 
"Ye have all spoken wisely, but one thing 
more is necessary ; he only can find rest who 
to all these things addeth this, that he keep- 
eth the traditions of the elders." There sat 
in the court a fair-haired boy, playing with 
his lilies in his lap, and hearing the talk, 
dropped them with astonishment from his 
hands, looked up and said, "Nay, fathers, he 
only loveth rest who loves his brother as 
himself, and God with his whole heart and 
soul. He is greater than wealth and fame 
and power, happier than a happy home, 
happy without it, better than honored age, 
he is a law to himself and above all tradi- 



234 The Wicket-Gate. 

fcion." The doctors were astonished. They 
said, "When Christ cometh shall he tell us 
greater things?" And yet they did not 
know that that very child was Christ. 

For this doing God's will, after all, is the 
only true rest which we can have in this 
world. There is no peace or rest to the 
wicked; they die with a dread and a terrible 
fear settling down upon them, as Judas did 
when he threw down the money and rushed 
out and hanged himself. They can not have 
that peace which passeth all understanding; 
that which the world can not give and can 
not take away. And it was the knowledge 
of this rest, and the possession of this peace, 
which enabled St. Paul to say, "The will of 
the Lord be done," and then to give the 
order to his companions for every man to 
take up his own burden, and not shrink from 
his duty, and take the "forward-march" step 
along the highway to Jerusalem. 

Remember this text, then, about the car- 
riages to Jerusalem. 



Carriages to Jerusalem. 235 

Don't forget these lessons : We have all got 
burdens to carry; every one must carry his 
own burden; we must not be afraid of the 
difficulties in the way; and the rest comes 
at the journey's end. 

There is a certain kind of chemical writing 
which disappears on paper, but which will 
be brought out when exposed to fire; just 
so it is with us in learning these lessons in 
life. I want you to get these truths written 
in your minds and consciences, and then, by 
and by, when you get nearer to the fire 
of life and its reality, the ivarm experiences 
you may meet there will bring the old writ- 
ing out. 

Pray to Jesus Christ, your Saviour, to 
make you true, brave boys and girls ; ask him 
to give you strength to do your duty cheer- 
fully in that state of life to which he has been 
pleased to call you. Don't be afraid of any 
thing but sin ; don't shirk your duties ; don't 
let other people do for you those things you 
know you ought to do yourself; don't be 
ashamed or afraid to carrv vour own bur- 



236 The Wicket-Gate. 

dens; and when you know it is your duty 
to go right on in the way laid out for you, 
don't halt on the way, or grumble about the 
bundles you may have to carry, but say, with 
the apostles of old, "The will of the Lord be 
done," and spring to your work. 

A little boy was once asked if he wasn't 
afraid to go through a graveyard at night. 
He said in reply, "I'm not half as afraid 
of the dead people as I am of the living, 
and when I begin to think about it at all, 
it's a great deal easier and quicker to run 
through the graveyard, than to run bach into 
it again." 

Be sure you're right, then go ahead; and 
though others may say I wouldn't, or don't 
go, or the road's hard, or the sun's hot, rise 
above them all, as St. Paul did when he bid 
them all good-by at Csesarea, and took up 
his carriages and went up to Jerusalem ! 



IX. 

'\t Jfcurfanir CIjmiHnt. 

No. 1.— THE FACE OF A LION. 



THE FOURFACED CHERUBIM. 

I. The Face of a Lion. 

"The face of a lion." — Ezekiel i. 10. 

J^HE verse where this text is found is a 
^■^ long and hard one to remember. But 
I am going to make four sermons out of it, 
and in this way we will build up its meaning, 
just as you build up a house out of blocks, 
with four sides to it. 

To-day we are only going to build up one 
side, and therefore we will only take one 
fourth part of the whole verse. 

We are going, then, to talk about the cher- 
ubim, or the strange living creature which 
the prophet Ezekiel saw in a vision, or 
dream, when he was a prisoner on the banks 
of the river Chebar in Chaldea. You know 
people like to go to shows and museums to 
see curiosities. 



240 The Wicket-Gate. 

Some time ago Barnum, the great show- 
man, had a woolly horse. Nobody knew 
where he came from, or any thing about 
him, but he had wool like a sheep, instead 
of having short hair like a horse, and ever 
so many people went to see him. Then he 
had the Siamese twins, and a woman with a 
heavy black beard, and giants and dwarfs, 
and fat boys and thin men, and a happy fam- 
ily of all kinds of animals in a cage together, 
and a sea-lion, and a whale that was har- 
nessed up to a sort of boat and pulled little 
Commodore Nutt around in a great tank full 
of water; and people went to see all these 
curiosities, just because they were so curious. 

Nobody would pay money to see a woolly 
sheep, or common horses, or cows in a field; 
or to see a man with a beard. We can see 
these things any day of our lives. But peo- 
ple like to see curious men and women and 
strange-looking animals, like the hippopota- 
mus, who opens his square jaws at you when 
the keeper taps him on the mouth with his 
cane, and then throws his head back and 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 241 

yawns at you out of the water; or the old 
ourang-outang, or man-monkey, who seems 
made on purpose to do funny things and 
make people laugh. 

There was a man once, in London, who 
advertised in the papers, and by handbills 
on the wall, that he would put himself into 
a quart bottle. The hall in which he was 
to perform this wonderful trick was crowded 
with people many hours before the time of 
the performance. But of course he could not 
do it, and when he appeared upon the stage 
he said that was only his way of bringing 
crowds of people together to hear a lecture 
he had. 

We all like to hear and see curious men 
and animals and wonderful things; and now 
I am going to preach four sermons about this 
wonderful living creature, with its four faces ; 
this cherubim which the prophet Ezekiel saw. 

But here some one may say, "Oh nobody 

knows what this living creature really was; 

and how can we find any lesson out of this 

Bible curiosity ? " Now, then, let us see, my 

16 



242 The Wicket-Gate. 

dear children, if we can not get four sermons 
out of this fourfaced cherubim, with plenty 
of lessons for us all. 

Well, then, you know in fairy stories and 
old legends we continually read about drag- 
ons and goblins and great ugly creatures that 
never existed, and that no one could ever see 
in the fields or menageries nowadays. In 
the Apochrypha, or that portion of the Bi- 
ble between the Old and the New Testament 
which is not considered the inspired word of 
God, there is a story about an idol named 
Bel, and a dragon, which the Babylonians 
worshipped. This story tells us that Dan- 
iel, the same Daniel who was thrown into 
the den of lions, took pitch and fat and hair, 
and seethed them together, and made lumps 
out of them, and put them into the dragon's 
mouth, so that he burst in two. And yet, 
even if we don't believe these things we like 
to read about them. There, for instance, is 
" Pilgrim's Progress." It is full of stories 
about giants and monsters and evil spirits; 
but then we know these things are only 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 243 

symbols or images of truth. Then we read 
in ancient history about the Cyclops, or giant 
men with one eye in the centre of their fore- 
heads; and about the minotaur, or mammoth 
bull, in the island of Crete; and about the 
centaurs, or half men and half horses. But, 
my dear children, the most wonderful living 
thing that ever was thought of by any one 
in fairy story or the old fables, doesn't begin 
to come near this strange cherubim. Let 
me tell you about it. Ezekiel, the Jewish 
prophet, was in captivity in the land of 
Chaldea, and one day, as he was sitting by 
the banks of the river Chebar, no doubt 
thinking about his old home, he had a vis- 
ion; just as you sometimes fall asleep and 
have a dream,, which seems so real to you 
that when you awake you can't believe you 
have only been asleep. Well, Ezekiel had 
this dream or vision. He saw a whirlwind 
or cloud of dust come out of the north, and 
there were dark, heavy clouds and a flame 
of fire in it. This must have looked like 
a huge piece of blazing fireworks moving 



244 The Wicket-Gate. 

straight across the dark sky. But now lis- 
ten to the account of this living cherubim 
in the midst of the flame. I am not going 
to tell you all that the prophet said about 
it. That would keep us too long. I shall 
only tell you a little of what he said. He 
saw, then, four of these living creatures, and 
every one had four faces and every one had 
four wings. The sole of their feet was like 
the sole of a calf's foot; that is, it was a 
hoof. They had the hands of a man under 
their wings on their four sides. Two wings 
were joined together and two wings covered 
their bodies. Then there were wheels and 
rings and burning brass and coals of fire and 
smoke. They went like a flash of lightning 
across the heavens. Moreover, they had four 
faces, the face of a lion, the face of an ox, 
the face of an eagle, and the face of a man. 
Now there are two other places in the Bible 
where we read about this cherubim. One is 
in the book of Exodus, where Moses tells us 
how Bezaleel, the man who made the ark, or 
chest, of the covenant, carved out two cher- 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 245 

ubim, with wings touching each other, over 
the Holy Place. The other is in the book of 
the Kevelation of St. John (some people call it 
" Revelations," but that is wrong), where we 
read about four living creatures who were be- 
fore the throne of God. There we read that 
the first beast, or living creature, was like a 
lion, the second was like a calf, the third had 
the face of a man, and the fourth was like a 
flying eagle. This is all that the Bible tells 
us about the cherubim. It must have been a 
very curious and mysterious being. We can 
not imagine how it looked, or know all that 
it was meant to teach the prophet Ezekiel. 
But it teaches us all one great lesson. It 
is this. God wants his children to be full 
of life and activity for him. He does not 
want any laziness, either here on earth or 
among his angels in heaven. He does not 
want the living beings who are to be around 
his throne, and are to do his will, to be 
sleepy, onesided creatures. He wants them 
to be full of life and activity : as full of it as 
children are when they are let out of school 



246 The Wicket-Gate. 

at recess-time ; as full as a Leyden jar is, 
when it is charged and filled with electricity. 
The cherubim, as it went flashing through 
the heavens, had four kinds of life in it : the 
life the lion leads; the life the ox leads; the 
life the eagle leads, and the life of man. 

And in this same way God wants us to 
have in our characters and lives the face, or 
the character, of the lion; the face, or like- 
ness, of the ox; the face of the eagle, as well 
as the character of man. This, then, is the 
lesson which the prophet's vision of the won- 
derful cherubim teaches us. 

Now we come to-day, in this first sermon 
about the fourfaced cherubim, to the first of 
these faces — the face of the lion. And this 
face of the lion teaches us two lessons. 

First. It teaches us a lesson of activity. 

Some animals are quiet and do not move 
about much. Look at the cattle in a field. 
They move about slowly; they always walk 
just as if they were to live forever. They do 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 247 

not run about a field as horses do. There is 
an animal in South America called the sloth, 
simply because he is so lazy. He curls him- 
self up in a tree, and never moves except 
when he can not help moving. In the Zo- 
ological garden out at Fairmount Park, in 
Philadelphia, there is a large bird-house filled 
with all sorts of birds. There are eagles and 
hawks and great vultures, who fly about all 
over the place ; and up in the trees you will 
see a whole family of owls, who appear never 
to move off their perches, but sit all day and 
do nothing but blink their eyes. 

Animals have character in their faces just 
as truly as men and women have. The bear 
tells you by his look that he is sullen; the 
fox tells you that he is sly; the mule says 
by his looks, "I am obstinate," just as truly 
as if this was labelled on him, like the labels 
of an apothecary; the ox tells you he is pa- 
tient and quiet, and the lion, as he moves 
through the desert, or paces up and down 
his cage, has the look of a creature that is 
active and brave. The lion knows perfectly 



248 The Wicket-Gate. 

well all the ground about his den. He 
goes over it in the night-time. Sometimes 
he goes for many miles, in order to know 
every tree and swamp and hollow place, just 
as a gardener knows all about his garden. 
He sleeps in the day-time, and roars and 
travels about at night, in order to hunt his 
food. And he goes his rounds as regularly 
as the hands of a clock go round its face; 
just as carefully as a watchman, or a police- 
man, goes on his beat at night. 

Goats and sheep and rabbits are active, 
but this is only when they feel like it ; they 
have no such regularity about their lives as 
the lion has in his business-like activity. 
Some time ago I went down into the vaults 
of one of our great safe-deposit buildings. 
You know people buy and hire boxes or 
drawers in these vaults, where they keep 
their valuables. Sometimes it is jewelry 
they have; sometimes it is papers and pre- 
cious documents, which they put in these 
drawers for safekeeping. The president of 
the institution went along and showed me 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 249 

the place where the watchman walked every 
night. At the end of every hour he has to 
be at a certain place where there is a watch 
to be wound up, and if he is not in that part 
of the building to wind it up at the proper 
time, it will be a tell-tale to him in the morn- 
ing, and will let the superintendent know 
that he has not done his duty. It will not 
do for him merely to walk up and down 
one side of the place, he must walk all the 
way round. He mustn't frisk about only 
when he feels like going, as the goats do 
when they are active; he must be regular 
in his activity, as the lion is. 

And, my dear children, we should try to 
be like the lion in this respect. How many 
people there are in the world who don't 
know what to do with themselves. They 
are not very much in earnest about things 
of this world; they are not in earnest about 
the world to come. They live, like butter- 
flies, or foolish grasshoppers, who have a 
good time to-day, but take no thought of 
the morrow. They call having a good time 



250 The Wicket-Gate. 

"killing time," as if time was an enemy; for- 
getting that hymn so dear to the Christian 
heart, which says, 

" And fast as my minutes roll on 

They bring me but nearer to thee." 

These kind of people are active enough, 
but what do they have to show at the end 
of the year ? The year is burned out just as 
a candle burns, — sputters, flickers, and goes 
out. People in the world are active, but how 
few there are who have the lion's resolute, 
systematic, determined activity. He is a 
great, noble, kingly beast. David says in 
one of the psalms, "The lions roaring after 
their prey do seek their meat from God." 
There is nothing trifling or small about the 
lion. He sets us a great example in his ac- 
tivity. It is his business to support himself 
and his family on the lower animals, just as 
we pay our butchers to kill sheep and oxen 
and poultry for us. He does not delight in 
playing with his victims, as the tiger and the 
cat do. He is thoroughly in earnest in his 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 251 

business of killing. He kills his enemies like 
a kingly warrior, in an open and fair way. 
In Africa the Hottentots try all kinds of 
ways to catch him, by laying snares for him. 
But he does not seem to surprise them by 
lying in wait for them. If they come in his 
way, he will fight, but he won't go out of his 
way for them. They know his habits and 
they watch for him. They know he will not 
stay in his den doing nothing, or crawling 
about like a sneak-thief. They know he is 
a regular watchman, treading his rounds at 
regular times, and so they watch for him 
and kill him. And the "face of the lion" 
in this wonderful cherubim, as it went fly- 
ing across the sky, means this same prompt 
and regular activity. God wants all his chil- 
dren to be thoroughly alive for him. The 
angels crowd around God's throne and fly 
to do his will. They love to do it; they 
are in a hurry to do it. Just think of that, 
now ! How many of you hurry, not to your 
kite, marbles, or base-ball grounds, but how 
many of you hurry to run errands for your 



252 The Wicket-Gate. 

parents? Well, the angels are God's messen- 
gers ; they go on his holy errands ; they never 
say, " I am going, presently " ; they are gone 
before they know it. Why, look at the arch- 
angel Gabriel. God told him to take a mes- 
sage to the prophet Daniel in Babylon, and 
he went, oh, how quickly ! There was the 
face of the lion about him when he went 
flying through space, just as the cherubim 
went. He passed by other worlds and suns 
and systems, he flew through all the stars 
of the milky way, and came at last within 
sight of the planet Earth. It must have 
seemed just like a speck to him at the first. 
Then it grew larger and larger, until the 
shadow of the light made it appear darker 
and darker; and at last, as Daniel himself 
says, about the time of the evening oblation, 
or prayer-time, the man Gabriel whom he 
had seen before, in a vision, touched him on 
the shoulder, and told him that he had come 
with a message from God in answer to his 
prayer. Think how swiftly Gabriel must 
have flown to do God's will, and carry the 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 253 

message to his servant, all the way from 
Heaven to Babylon. 

This, then, is the first lesson which the face 
of the lion teaches us. God wants us to be 
active for him. He gives us eyes to see 
with, ears to hear with, hands to handle 
with, feet to walk with, and he wants all 
these to be used for him. You know if we 
don't use a thing it will spoil. If you buy 
a wooden bucket which is made on purpose 
to hold water, and then put it in the sun 
without any water in it, it will come to 
pieces. If yon keep only a very little water 
in a large tin which is meant to hold a great 
deal of water, it will rust the tin. If you 
build a locomotive, or a steamboat, and then 
let them stand in the sun and the rain with- 
out ever using the machinery, it will rust to 
pieces. And, just in the same way, there 
are many people who tie up all their good 
traits of character, as old Egyptian mummies 
are strapped and bandaged together. Their 
souls go to rust, they wither away and 
shrivel up, because they are not active 



254 The Wicket-Gate. 

for God, and have not any thing to do for 
him. 

Remember, then, that activity is the first 
thing which the face of the lion teaches us. 

The second lesson which the face of the 
lion teaches us is — Courage. 

"We all like to read about brave, strong 
men. Look at King Richard the First. They 
called him Coeur de Leon, or " Him of the 
Lion Heart." He swung a tremendous bat- 
tle-axe, and was a terrible fellow, as he 
came tearing down among the Mohamme- 
dans with their thin linen turbans. But then 
this is not the greatest kind of strength. 
They used to think so in olden times. The 
man who could shake the heaviest lance or 
spear, or throw the largest stone, or wear 
the heaviest armor, was considered the great- 
est man. And when two armies met, they 
fought just like wild beasts. One army 
would stand up and cut the other army 
into pieces, just as a butcher cuts up chops 
upon a meat-block. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 255 

But as the world has become more and 
more Christianized, men have found out that 
there is something better than mere ani- 
mal strength. The world has found out that 
there is some better way of settling disputes 
than by merely fighting over the question. 
The pen is mightier than the sword, and 
moral courage, or the strength to do right, 
is a great deal better than merely animal 
courage. 

There are plenty of men who would stand 
up on a battle-field where the shots are whiz- 
zing and the great cannon-balls are flying, 
who would be afraid to stand up for the 
right, if it was an unpopular thing to do; 
or to be owned as a disciple of the Lord Je- 
sus, if their friends and comrades laughed at 
them. 

Some years ago, in Kentucky, there was 
a brave, rough old revival preacher, named 
Peter Cartwright. He used to preach just 
what he believed, and was never afraid of 
speaking out his mind. One day General 
Jackson, who was then a candidate for the 



256 The Wicket-Gate. 

presidency, went to church to hear him 
preach. Just as the old minister was about 
to announce his text, one of the elders of 
the church walked up into the pulpit, and 
whispered in his ear that since they had so 
great a man present as General Jackson, he 
had better not preach as plainly as usual. 
Old Peter Cartwright heard the elder through, 
and then answered back in a loud tone, so 
that every one in the church could hear, 
"What do I care for General Jackson. He 
will be lost just like any other sinner if he 
don't repent and love Jesus Christ." 

In the days of Louis XL, of France, there 
was a brave old monk, named Millard, who 
used to rebuke the king in public for his 
vices. One day while he was preaching to 
a crowd of people in Paris, a messenger from 
the king with half a dozen of the royal guard 
appeared on the scene to stop him. The mes- 
senger told him that the king said if he didn't 
change his tone he would have him thrown 
into the river Seine. "Tell him," replied the 
old monk, " that I will get to heaven sooner 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 257 

by water than he with all his post-horses." 
And the crowd would not let the soldiers 
hurt the preacher. 

Here is one story more. In the days of 
the Koman republic there was a celebrated 
king and warrior named Pyrrhus. He was 
king of a little country called Epirus, which 
was a part of Greece. He was very anxious 
to get the Eomans over to his side in a war 
which he was then waging. The Eomans 
sent out an ambassador to him named Fabri- 
cius. The Eoman people at that time were 
very plain and simple in their way of living, 
for Eome was a republic something like the 
United States, only they had two presidents 
at a time, whom they called consuls. Pyr- 
rhus thought he would do all in his power 
to make a great effect upon the ambassador's 
mind and gain him over to his side. So the 
first day he spent in the camp of Pyrrhus, a 
grand entertainment was given in his honor. 
The plain Eoman had never before seen so 
much grandeur and such style of living. 
There were so many things to eat and 
17 



258 The Wicket-Gate. 

drink, and such splendid cups and vessels 
of silver and gold, that he could hardly eat 
any thing. At last when it was all over, 
some Ethiopian slaves appeared, bringing the 
ambassador quantities of presents of gold and 
silver plate and vessels. But Fabricius de- 
clined them all, saying he was not allowed 
by his government to receive any presents. 
The next day Pyrrhus thought to himself, 
"Now I'll frighten him into my terms." The 
Grecians used to tight in those days with ele- 
phants, and it appeared that Fabricius had 
never seen an elephant. So while they were 
dining together on the second day, all of a 
sudden a dreadful noise was heard ; the 
screens which were around the table dis- 
appeared, and three large elephants, with 
torches in their trunks, marched up to the 
table, and flamed their lights about. It had 
been arranged by Pyrrhus that when the 
elephants should appear, he and his guests 
should run, as if in terror. But Fabricius 
sat at his place, with the elephants marching 
around the pavilion, and only remarked to 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 259 

Pyrrhus when he returned, "You no more 
frighten me with your beasts to-day, than 
you moved me with your bribes yesterday." 

My dear children, we may not have great 
strength of body, as the lion has, but we can 
have, in our way, something of his splendid 
courage. We can stand up against sin and 
temptation, and have moral courage not to 
be afraid to do right, as the lion has cour- 
age not to yield, but to die fighting. When 
Louis XVI., king of France, was taken pris- 
oner in the beautiful palace of the Tuilleries 
by the infuriated mob who put him to death 
on the guillotine, he had a body-guard of sol- 
diers, known as the Swiss Guard, who stood 
to the very last defending the palace, and 
died, fighting till there wasn't one left. 

And the great sculptor Thorwalsden, cut 
out of a rock at Lucerne in Switzerland in 
memory of these brave men, a mammoth 
lion, pierced with an arrow and dying, and 
yet with his noble great paw holding on 
to the French shield, and trying to cling to 
it to the very last. 



260 The Wicket-Gate. 

Think how the martyrs went joyfully to 
death for the love they bore to their Lord. 
They didn't think about their tortures or the 
pain of dying. In the eleventh chapter of 
the epistle to the Hebrews there is a long ac- 
count of the faith and courage of God's ser- 
vants. There we read, " They were stoned, 
they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were 
slain with the sword: they wandered about 
in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, 
afflicted, tormented." But they knew God 
would take their souls from their burning 
bodies; they knew they would look down on 
their poor bodies tied to the hot stake, just as 
Elijah looked down from his chariot of fire, 
taking him straight to God, upon poor Eli- 
sha, who was left behind. If we are only 
Christians, we ought not to be afraid of any 
thing but sin. We oughtn't to fear death. 
Jesus said, "Fear not him who killeth the 
body, and after that hath no more power to 
hurt. But I will forewarn you whom ye 
shall fear. Fear him who after he has killed 
you, hath power to cast both body and soul 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 261 

in hell. Yea, I say unto you, fear hiin." 
That is, we must be afraid of Satan's power 
and our own sinful, evil wills. 

And now let me close this sermon with 
one story more, a story I heard once when 
I was a little boy, and which I have never 
forgotten, and which I do not want you to 
forget. 

There was some time ago in England, a 
dear old clergyman, who had a beautiful ru- 
ral church, very old and overgrown with ivy. 
His daughter used to teach a class of boys 
in church, long before there was any thing 
like our present Sunday-schools. Every one 
loved the dear old minister, he was so good 
and kind. Sometimes he used to come into 
church before service time, and tell the dif- 
ferent classes stories. The children would 
watch to see the old man coming, and then 
some of them would run along the shaded 
path that led to the church porch to meet 
him and take his hand, and beg him to come 
and tell their class a story. And the old man 
would pat them on the head, and kiss the lit- 



262 The Wicket-Gate. 

tie ones, and say, " Well, well ! Let me see, 
whose turn is it now?" 

One Sunday afternoon it came round to his 
daughter's turn to have a story, and when 
the boys were all around him, he leaned his 
chin on his cane and told them this story: 

"One very warm afternoon, as I was sit- 
ting in my study window, I heard you chil- 
dren coming along to church, and I fell 
asleep with your voices ringing in my ear. 
I dreamed that I was in a boat all alone; 
the water was very rough and boisterous, 
and the sky was angry and stormy, and I 
was afraid I would go down. Suddenly, it 
seemed as if some angel took hold of my lit- 
tle boat, for in a few minutes I found myself 
in perfectly still water. I was in a coral 
grove; the water was calm and blue, and I 
could look far down into the depths below, 
and see the pearl shells down there on the 
reef. I saw children playing upon the shore ; 
they were dressed in white, and each one had 
a red sash around his waist and a silver cross 
around his neck. I heard a bell ringing in 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 263 

the distance, and saw the children going into 
church. 'What place is this?' I asked, as 
the children came flocking around my boat 
on the sand. 'This is the Island Home of 
the Good Shepherd,' said a tall boy named 
Angelo. 'We are all under the care of a 
dear teacher named Pastor. Once we be- 
longed to a wicked master, but our Good 
Shepherd died to save us from his power, 
and Pastor teaches us all about heaven and 
sin and the life everlasting. We wear this 
blood-red sash, because the Good Shepherd 
shed his blood for us. We wear this cross 
around our necks, because it is the sign that 
we are his faithful soldiers and servants. 
But here come Pastor and Guido and Ste- 
phen, our three teachers.' And I was wel- 
comed by them all, and went with them into 
church. Then after service, they showed me 
the school -room, and the garden where the 
children worked, and I stayed with them, as 
it seemed to me, many days. 

"But I saw they were not all obedient to 
Pastor, though Angelo, the oldest boy, tried 



264 The Wicket-Gate. 

hard to set them a good example. I saw 
three boys named Wayward and Slothful and 
Timid, who pouted about the work they had 
to do, and spoke cross words to Angelo when 
he reproved them. 

'"We don't want to work: we want to 
have a good time ; what's the use in minding 
such hard rules? Why can't we do as we 
want ? ' 

" 'That's so,' said a voice from a boat near 
by, for they were standing by a curve in the 
shore. 'That's so, get in my boat and we 
will go a-fishing; I am a fisherman.' 

"'No,' said a little girl named Bella, 'you 
haven't any sash, and you haven't any cross, 
and Pastor told us never to listen to any one 
who tempted us to go away.' 

" ' Who cares for such things,' said the 
fisherman. ' Jump in ! Jump in ! ' 

" 'Let us go,' replied Wayward, and he and 
Slothful put Timid and little Bella in the 
boat, and they pushed off. 

"There was a fine, large, noble-looking boy 
standing near them, named Courage. When 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 265 

he saw what was done, he ran to the boat- 
house, where there was a large bell, and rang 
it violently, with all his might. This soon 
brought all the boys together. 

"'Boys,' cried Courage, 'who'll go with me 
after that villain of a fisherman? He is a 
servant of our old master the evil one ; see he 
is frightening the children now. And as he 
said this, they heard the black fisherman 
laughing and shouting, ' Now I have caught 
you ! Now I have caught you ! ' Then he 
rocked the boat so wildly that they almost 
fell in the water ! After this, he took off 
their silver crosses and their red sashes, and 
put them in his pocket. 

"But none of the older boys were near 
enough to go with Courage. Angelo and 
Stephen were in the garden, and the little 
boys were afraid to go. So Courage, very 
quickly, pushed out a boat for himself, and 
rowed as fast as he could. In the meantime 
the little boys went on ringing the bell, and 
Pastor and the teachers came running down 
to the point. There they saw Courage, all 



266 The Wicket-Gate. 

alone, chasing the fisherman. But he rowed 
so hard that he did not see that the fisher- 
man changed the direction of his boat, and 
was rowing right into the side of his boat, to 
swamp him. Suddenly, there was a crash! 
Courage was thrown backwards ; the boat 
filled with water and sank, and Courage 
was struggling alone in the water. The 
fisherman rowed forward laughing at Cour- 
age, and calling out to him to catch him. 
Wayward and Timid and Slothful were tied 
in the bottom of the boat, and though they 
screamed for help, it was all in vain. 

" 'Take me, Courage ! Dear Courage, take 
me ! ' cried little Bella, and she jumped into 
the water. 

"Courage swam up to her, and told her 
to put her arms around his neck and hold 
on to him. Then he began to swim back. 
In the mean time, Stephen and Guido and 
Angelo and the boatmen pulled out in the 
other boats, and rowed hard and fast to 
reach Courage. But it was too late ! He 
was too much exhausted. He gave out. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 267 

He went under twice, and poor little Bella 
fell off, but was caught by the nearest boat- 
man, while Courage sank for the third time 
in the water, and was drowned. 

" They found his body and brought it 
ashore, and when they were weeping loud- 
est, and the boat-house bell was tolling, I 
sighed a long sigh, and — found it was only 
a dream. 

" I heard the church bell ring, and had just 
time to hurry into service. But I couldn't 
forget about the Island Home all that day, 
and I kept thinking about dear, brave Cour- 
age all through my sermon. 

"And now, boys," said the old minister, 
"your teacher will explain this story to you." 

Well, it isn't hard to do this. 

The Christian Church where we are taught 
the truth about our Saviour is our Island 
Home ; and if we are trying to be Christians, 
then we are like these children who had the 
silver cross around their necks. 

Kemember that Satan is near you, to tempt 
you into sin, as the fisherman tempted Way- 



268 The Wicket-Gate. 

ward. Remember he finds mischief still for 
idle hands to do. 

Therefore, be lion-like: be active; be coura- 
geous; be strong in doing good; be strong in 
resisting temptation. Remember that "the 
wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the 
righteous are bold as the lion." 

This fourfaced cherubim, then, teaches us 
that God wants his children to be full of life 
for him. He doesn't want us to be onesided 
merely. And the face of the lion means that 
we should be like the lion, in being active 
and in being brave. 

We can all be very courageous for Je- 
sus, and for the right, if we pray to God 
to help us. 

Pray, then, dear children, that God may 
give you the face of the lion in your char- 
acter; that you may have the lion's activity, 
and the lion's courage! 



X. 

>\t Jfourfanfr CjjeruHnt. 

No. 2.— THE FACE OF AN OX. 



THE FOURFACED CHERUBIM. 

II. The Face of an Ox. 

"The face of an ox." — Ezektel i. 10. 



V 



'HIS face of the ox was on the left side of 
the cherubim. The face of the man 
and the face of the lion were on the right- 
hand side. "We don't know just where the 
face of the eagle was placed. It must have 
been a very wonderful living creature, as 
the prophet Ezekiel saw it flying over the 
plains. As we have seen before, these same 
four faces appear in St. John's vision of 
heaven. Before the throne of God, there 
were four living creatures, and the first 
was like a lion, and the second was like a 
calf, and the third beast had a face as a 
man, and the fourth beast was like a flying 
eagle. 

All forms of life were represented in heaven 



272 The Wicket-Gate. 

by these four appearances, of the lion, the ox, 
the eagle, and the man, and it was all these 
different kinds of life in one living creature 
which the Jewish prophet saw, when he be- 
held in his vision this strange and mysterious 
cherubim. 

We learn from this second face in the cher- 
ubim to have the power or the endurance of 
the ox. And the ox represents two kinds 
of power: poiver to do, and power to suffer. 

I. 

First, then: 

Power to do, or strength to ivorh This is 
the first thing the face, or the character, of 
the ox means. The ox is trained to do his 
work ; he does not come to it naturally. 
Calves and colts are led by ropes and hal- 
ters before they are put into shafts. They 
have strength when they are young; but it 
does not amount to any thing, because it is 
untrained strength. They play in the fields, 
while the patient oxen are pulling under the 
heavy yoke, which seems so hard and uncom- 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 273 

fortable, and the steady old plough-horses 
are dragging the heavy traces of the plough, 
or working along in the big, thick shafts of 
the rough old cart. And the oxen turn their 
big bull necks and suffering looking eyes at 
them, and the old horses turn their heads, 
and look out from their hard leathern blind- 
ers at them, capering about in the pasture, 
as much as to say, "Never mind, you gay 
little chaps, your time for working will 
come by and by ! " 

This strength which the ox and the horse 
have is trained strength. See how long it 
takes to break them in. An ox will try for 
a month to wriggle his head out of a yoke, 
and a colt will chew on his bit for weeks, 
before he learns to give up and submit to his 
fate. 

Why, to hear a man drive oxen and talk 
to them, one would think that it required 
a very long time to break them in, and get 
them accustomed to the language. The driv- 
ers of ox- carts have long poles, and they 
keep touching the oxen on the heads all the 
18 



274 The Wicket-Gate. 

time, and calling out, "Haw, buck, gee! Oh, 
haw! Whoa, buck!" etc. It sounds just like 
reading Hebrew out aloud! But the oxen 
become accustomed to it in some way, and 
will not pull well unless they are talked to ; 
though I should think it would make them 
mad to be talked to so incessantly. 

And you and I, my dear children, have 
our training-days, just as the young oxen 
have theirs. We have got to put some yoke 
on one of these days; we have got to pull 
in some kind of shafts. I know how boys 
feel about going to school. They think — 
"Oh, dear me! I wish I didn't have to work 
so hard, and go to school every morning, 
year in and year out. I wish I could be 
free, like my father." But, my dear children, 
work is the law of this world. Even Jesus, 
when he was on earth, said, "My Father 
worketh hitherto, and I work." None of us 
can do just as we want to do all the time; 
and it wouldn't be well for us if we could. 
"No man liveth unto himself." We have got 
to put on tJie yoke some time. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 275 

"We may fuss and fume about it, as the 
colts do ; or we may try to wriggle out of it, 
as the young oxen do; but one of these days 
we'll give up trying to get out of it, and then 
we will be trained. 

Now this may look hard, but in reality it 
isn't hard. We were made to work : the face 
of the ox means power to work, or strength 
to act, and we ought to have this power of 
doing something, or of working, in our lives. 
You and I were made to work, just as the 
ox was made for the yoke, and the yoke was 
made for the ox. 

Some boys go into stores, and enter upon 
business ; some study in lawyers' offices, and 
become lawyers themselves; some go into the 
army, some into the navy, some study medi- 
cine, and a very few become ministers. 

And if all these boys want to succeed in 
life, in their different callings, they must see 
to it that they are thoroughly broken in, and 
are carefully trained for the work before 
them. They must be willing to wear the 
yoke of patient service if they want to sue- 



276 The Wicket-Gate. 

ceed. They mustn't be afraid of the yoke 
and the yoke-pins; they must have the face 
of the ox; they must have strength to labor, 
ability to do a good day's work. 

In some of our geography books there are 
pictures at the head of the lessons, represent- 
ing the progress of our country in civiliza- 
tion. Indians on their little ponies, and 
great, shaggy, plunging buffaloes, are run- 
ning away further west before railroad cars 
and steamboats, and farmers who are cutting 
down trees and ploughing the ground with 
a lot of oxen. Now what is the difference 
between the Indian and the white man? 
What is the difference between the buffaloes 
and the oxen? Simply the difference of the 
yoke. The white men and the oxen are 
trained, they are civilized ; the Eed men and 
the buffaloes are uncivilized. They have 
never been trained. They haven't got the 
face of the ox in their lives. This is very 
wonderful; but it is the strength which has 
come out of discipline, and out of training, 
which has given this great continent of 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 277 

North America to the white men, or the 
Anglo-Saxon race, as we are called in the 
books. 

And then, too, when we come to the 
thought of being strong Christians, and serv- 
ing God, we had that there are just the same 
two classes of people: the trained and the 
untrained; or those who have strength to 
do something for him, and those who have 
no willingness or power to work for him. 

After all that we may say about it, there 
are only two great masters in the world: 
these are Jesus Christ and Satan. The two 
ways of being trained are by doing the will 
of our Father in heaven, and by doing our 
own will; and the two yokes are the yoke 
of duty and the yoke of pleasure. Our Sa- 
viour once said to the people that were about 
him, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and 
are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; 
for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye 
shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke 
is easy, and my burden is light." 



278 The Wicket-Gate. 

In the year 273 there was a famous empe- 
ror of Rome named Aurelian. In the midst 
of his wars and conquests he overthrew a 
celebrated queen named Zenobia. Her hus- 
band's name was Odenatus. He built up a 
kingdom over in Syria, and founded a city 
called Palmyra. When Odenatus died, Zeno- 
bia, his wife, ruled, and called herself Queen 
of the East. You can read all about her 
wonderful kingdom, one of these days, in 
Gibbon's " History of the Decline and Fall of 
the Roman Empire." 

Well, the great emperor Aurelian stormed 
the city and destroyed the temples and made 
Zenobia his captive. She was a very proud 
and haughty woman, and she tried very hard 
to kill herself rather than be compelled to 
walk after Aurelian's chariot when he had 
his final triumph in the streets of Rome. 
The captives used to have to walk, with 
chains on them, after their conqueror's char- 
iots. When Aurelian saw how proud she 
was, and how she took on about following 
after his chariot as a captive, he ordered her 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 279 

chains to be made of gold; and so this queen- 
ly woman, with her crown on her head and 
with gold chains about her body, followed 
her great conqueror. 

Children, were those chains any less chains, 
— any the less strong fetters, — binding that 
captive woman to the triumphal chariot of 
Aurelian, because they were of gold? Of 
course not. They were chains, even if they 
were made of gold. 

Well, just in this same way, Satan's chains 
are made; his yoke doesn't look like a hard 
yoke, but it is hard, after all, even though it 
is stuffed and padded with this world's soft 
things. His chains don't look like chains, 
because they are bright and shiny; but the 
gilt will wear off some day, and the soft pad- 
dings in his yoke will all disappear, and then 
we will be as much his captives, after all, as 
Zenobia, the Queen of the East, was the cap- 
tive of the emperor Aurelian. 

And you and I, my dear children, are train- 
ing now to serve one of these two masters. 

In fact we are already serving Satan, if 



280 The Wicket-Gate. 

we are not now serving Christ. Jesus said, 
u He that is not with me is against me, and 
he that gathereth not with me scattereth 
abroad." He wants us all to do our heavenly 
Father's will: not to be wild and sinful and 
untrained, doing only our own will, just what 
we happen at the moment to want to do. 
He wants us to put on the yoke of service for 
God, just as he himself came down from 
heaven not to do his own will, but the will 
of him that sent him ; just as he came not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister and to 
give his life a ransom for many. He wants 
us to be trained for his service, because it is 
our duty to do it, and because we will be the 
happier for it. 

We ought to have, then, the face, or the 
likeness, of the ox in our characters ; we 
ought to have his trained power to work, and 
to pull on the side of Jesus in this busy, 
struggling, wicked world. 

We must not think, then, that we have 
nothing to do for him, because he has done 
every thing for us; that we can have any 




ROMAN GLADIATORS SALUTING THE EMPEROR. 
W. Gate. p. 281 






The Fourfaced Cherubim. 281 

"reserved seats" in his service, and look on 
at others doing all the work. 

In the old Roman amphitheatre, in the 
days when they used to have those terribly 
cruel sports known as gladiatorial shows, the 
poor gladiators, with their shields and hel- 
mets on, would march up in a sad sort of fu- 
neral procession to the throne of the emperor, 
knowing that some of them would never 
come out of that same ring alive, and would 
brandish their swords before him, saying, 
"Ave Ccesarem: morituri te salutant." And 
then, while the emperor and the coliseum 
packed with thousands of people would look 
on at the combat, these men would fight for 
their lives, until one or the other side were 
all killed. 

Now suppose you and I had to fight in 
this way for our own salvation, suppose we 
could not be saved unless we fought in the 
ring with some combatants there, how much 
harder it would be for us to be saved ! 

But suppose, now, that while these gladi- 
ators were getting ready for their contest in 



282 The Wicket-Gate. 

the ring, the great emperor himself should 
come down from his throne and say, " I will 
take these men's places; I will fight for them, 
and they shall go free." Oh, what a shout 
of praise and gratitude those poor doomed 
men would raise! 

And yet this is just what God has done 
for us. Here is what the prophet, speaking 
by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says, 
as if it were God himself who was speaking: 
"I have trodden the winepress alone, and of 
the people there was none with me; and I 
looked and there was none to help; and won- 
dered that there was none to uphold: there- 
fore mine own arm brought salvation unto 
me, and my fury it upheld me. For he said, 
Surely they are my people, children that will 
not lie, so he was their Saviour. In all their 
affliction he was afflicted, and the Angel of 
his presence saved them; in his love and in 
his pity he redeemed them; and he bare 
them, and carried them all the days of old." 

Once the great Dr. Livingstone, the mis- 
sionary and explorer of Africa, was writing 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 283 

home from one of his encampments about 
some of the trials and privations he met with 
in his journeyings, and then ended his letter 
with these words: "But these privations are 
not mentioned as if I considered them in the 
light of sacrifice. I think that word 'sacri- 
fice' ought never to be used with reference 
to any thing we can do for him who though 
he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor." 

What we want, then, is trained strength 
for Christ's service; not in order to save our- 
selves, but to show our thankfulness to our 
Saviour for all that he has done for us. We 
want to be trained for our Lord's yoke, that 
we may do something for him ; we want to 
have the first thing the face of the ox tells 
us we ought to have — Poiver to work. 

II. 

Poiver to suffer is the other kind of power 
the face of the ox teaches us. 

The ox not only labors in the field in the 
plough ; he yields up his life upon the altar. 



284 The Wicket-Gate. 

In the old Jewish worship oxen were sacri- 
ficed continually upon the brazen altar; and 
to-day there are no animals which are killed 
so frequently for man's food as oxen. Thus 
they stand as a type, or picture, of sacrifice 
and submission. And we must learn to sub- 
mit, and to give up our own wills, and be 
patient. 

When John Milton, the great English poet, 
became blind, he wrote a poem about the 
darkness and loneliness he was in through 
this great affliction, and it ended with these 
words, speaking of God's manifold kingdom : 

" his state 

Is kingly : thousands at his bidding speed 
And post o'er land and ocean without rest. 
They also serve who only stand and wait." 

It is a great deal harder for soldiers to 
stand idly by upon a battle-field, not fighting, 
but only waiting for their time to come. At 
the battle of Waterloo, Napoleon's Old Guard 
could not stand it, and they cried out — " Let 
us go ! Let us go ! Don't keep us waiting." 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 285 

And King Solomon says in the book of Prov- 
erbs, "He that ruleth his temper is better 
than he that taketh a city." That is, it is 
better to stand by, and hold and curb one's 
self, and stand being stormed, than it is to 
storm at another man. 

Sir Walter Raleigh was once challenged 
by a hot-headed young man to fight, and 
because he refused, the young man spit in 
his face, as the Jews did to Jesus. Now Sir 
"Walter Raleigh was a great discoverer; he 
had been over the waters to America and the 
East Indies, and had served in the army, 
and wasn't afraid of any thing or any body. 
But he tried hard to be a true Christian, and 
on this occasion, showing this power which 
the ox has, — power to suffer, — he simply took 
out his handkerchief, and calmly wiping off 
his face, made this reply: "Young man, if I 
could as easily wipe your blood from my con- 
science as I can this injury from my face, I 
would shoot this very minute, here on this 
spot." 

And this strength to submit, this power 



286 The Wicket-Gate. 

which will enable us to suffer for a cause 
when we can not do any thing else for it, 
is a very hard thing to get. This is what St. 
Peter has in mind, when he says, "This is 
thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward 
God endure grief, suffering wrongfully. For 
what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for 
your faults, ye shall take it patiently ? but if, 
when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it 
patiently, this is acceptable with God. For 
even hereunto were ye called : because Christ 
also suffered for us, leaving us an example, 
that ye should follow his steps: who did no 
sin, neither was guile found in his mouth." 
But here some one may say, — " Oh, this is a 
very hard thing to do, and only saints and 
martyrs can do it; and, after all, God gives 
his great big saints strength enough for their 
sufferings, but he can't expect much of us 
children, in these days." 

But, my dear children, God is not a hard 
master, and he don't want us to do impossi- 
ble things! But he does want us to try to 
do something, or to suffer something, for 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 287 

him. Look at the disciples. Once when Je- 
sus was with them, there was a great multi- 
tude of people listening to him in a desert 
place, and they had nothing to eat, and many 
of them came a great distance. Then Jesus 
said to Philip, " Whence shall we buy bread 
that these may eat ? " Philip thought that if 
they had two hundred penny-worth of bread 
it would not be enough. Then Andrew, Si- 
mon Peter's brother, said there was a boy 
in the company who had five barley loaves 
and two fishes. Jesus said that would do. I 
wonder whether they bought it of him, or 
whether he gave it. I always thought this 
boy gave it; that when he saw they hadn't 
any thing to eat he ran up to Jesus, say- 
ing, " Here's some bread, and here are some 
fishes; take them, if they are of any use." 
That boy went without his bread, and the 
fishes he had just caught; he gave them to 
Jesus, and Jesus blessed them, and blessed 
the boy, and made his gift the means of do- 
ing a wonderful work in feeding the five 
thousand people. Jesus didn't ask that boy 



288 The Wicket-Gate. 

to give him five thousand loaves, he only 
asked him for five; that was enough for him, 
that was enough to work the miracle with. 
And he don't want you, my dear children, to 
do impossible things: to jump into the fire, 
or into the water for his sake. He only 
wants you boys and girls, who are trying to 
be his children, to be willing to submit now 
and then for his sake: not to do always just 
what you want to do, but to have this kind 
of power the ox has — power to bear, power 
to submit. 

In school, in your plays, at home, when 
things don't go just as you want, then 
try to remember how your Saviour "when 
he was reviled, reviled not again; when he 
suffered he threatened not, but committed 
himself to him that judgeth righteously : " 
that is, to God his Father, who knew every 
thing about his whole life. And that is what 
I mean by our having this second kind of 
strength: strength to suffer, to submit pa- 
tiently, as the face of the ox tells us he 
submits. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 289 

There was in a Sunday-school in Manches- 
ter, England, a poor little girl named Polly. 
She had a hard, careless mother who made 
no account of religion, and was sometimes 
very rough and cruel to her child. One Sun- 
day morning, at breakfast time, her mother 
said to her, 

" Heighho, Polly, run to the shop and get 
us a loaf for breakfast and a jug of beer. 

"Why, mother," said the girl, "it's Sun- 
day!" 

"And what if it is," replied her mother. 
"Dost think we mun have no breakfast be- 
cause it's a Sunday?" 

Poor little Polly was about to say that the 
loaf might have been got on Saturday, when 
her mother, who perceived she was going to 
"praich a sarmunt," stopped all further in- 
quiries on the subject by hitting the girl 
some heavy blows on the back, and then 
going to fetch the loaf herself. Polly cried, 
not so much about the blows as to see her 
mother behave so, and her grief was by no 
means diminished when her mother returned 



290 The Wicket-Gate. 

and said she could have no breakfast, because 
she would not get the loaf. Polly said noth- 
ing, but quietly went off to school. This was 
only the beginning of Polly's troubles, for on 
her return home to dinner she had hardly 
entered the house, when her mother declared 
she was a little canting Methodist and should 
have no dinner, for not bringing the loaf in 
the morning. Poor girl, what was she to 
do ! First she thought she would run away 
to her grandmother's, and never go home 
again; then she thought she would go right 
off and tell her Sunday-school teacher all 
about it. But she did not do either of these. 
She went right up in her own little room, up 
the dark rickety stairs, in the attic. She 
untied her bonnet, and took off her shawl, 
and dropped on her knees by the bedside. 
" Oh, God ! " she said, " help a poor, feeble, 
little girl to bear up under all this! I'm 
hungry, and I'm weak, and I'm almost bro- 
ken-hearted. Help me. Thou hast meat 
that my mother knows not of. Give me 
some." And then she prayed for her moth- 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 291 

er, that God would touch her heart. And 
when she got up from her knees, though she 
was so faint that she could hardly hold up 
her head, she put on her things again and 
crept quietly down-stairs and off to school. 
Her mother eyed her as she passed, and she 
saw a calmness in her white face, and a res- 
ignation in her eyes, red with weeping, that 
went to her very soul. Her teacher at the 
Sunday-school saw that there was something 
the matter with Polly, but she could not get 
out of her what it was. She sat in her class, 
and looked at her teacher with her pale face, 
and listened to all that she said. Polly was 
as ready as any to answer questions, and she 
almost forgot her mother's treatment of her 
and her own hunger. But as she was walk- 
ing home she was almost ready to stop with 
feebleness, and when she entered the door- 
way and her mother saw her, the true moth- 
erly feelings prevailed; she was subdued by 
her poor child's quiet, patient suffering. 

" Oh, Polly ! " she said, " how sorry I am 
that I've kept thee starving all day. Polly, 



292 The Wicket-Gate. 

clear, you will forgive me. "Won't you Pol- 
ly?" And then she asked if she had had 
any thing to eat and whether she had told 
any one about it. 

Thus little Polly, the poor, weak child, got 
the victory; not by resistance, but by sub- 
mission ; not by the power of doing, but by 
the power of bearing; and she was never 
treated unkindly by any one at home again. 

Many years ago there was a missionary 
society among the Moravians. These Mora- 
vians sent out a great many missionaries into 
this country. A certain nobleman, named 
Count Zinzendorf, was at the head of this 
society. And the seal of this society, the 
stamp that was made upon all their docu- 
ments and papers, was a picture of an ox 
standing between an altar and a plough, 
with this motto underneath: 

"geabj for €r%r." 

The plough means labor, or power to work; 
and the altar means sacrifice, or power to 
submit; and the face of the ox standing be- 



The Fourjaced Cherubim. 293 

tween the plough and the altar means the 
two kinds of power, of which we have been 
speaking in this sermon: 

Power to do. 

Poiuer to suffer. 

This is just the place where every true 
Christian ought to stand : willing to work, or 
willing to suffer, as God sees fit. 

Bear in mind, then, the two kinds of power 
the face of the ox teaches us, and let us try 
always to be — 

"Ready for either." 



XL 

C|e Jffliufanb CjrenrHm. 

No. 3.— THE FACE OF AN EAGLE. 



THE FOURFACED CHERUBIM. 

III. The Face of an Eagle. 

"The face of an eagle." — EzEKCEii i. 10. 

lOtfYE come now to the third face in this 
wonderful cherubim, "the face of an 
eagle." 

Just as the lion seems to be the king 
among the beasts of the field, so the eagle 
seems to be the king of all the birds. You 
know we Americans are very proud of the 
eagle. It is stamped upon our gold and sil- 
ver coins, and helps to form our national coat 
of arms. You have all seen this splendid 
American eagle in these pictures, defending 
the stars and stripes, and looking very fierce 
with his stretched-out neck and sharp beak 
and the sharp arrows in his claws, or talons. 
Then, in ancient history, we know the Eo- 
man soldiers used to have golden eagles put 



298 



The Wicket-Gate. 



1 



upon rods, in the place of flags and banners, 
and they used to fight in battle to defend 
these eagles, just as soldiers nowadays fight 
over their flags, and die rather than give up 
their colors. In the pictures of Roman bat- 
tles and triumphal marches you will see these 
rods with eagles at the top of them, while 
underneath the eagles you will see a square 
sort of bar (something like this) with these 
letters on it, 

These letters are for the 
following Latin words — 
" Senatus Populus que Bo- 
manus" and mean, "The 
Senate and People of 
Rome." Then, too, the 
French soldiers since the time of Napoleon 
have had golden eagles ajong with their tri- 
color flags; and the Prussians have a great 
double-headed black eagle upon their nation- 
al flag and on their coat of arms. 

They do not take a buzzard, or a hawk, or 
an ostrich to represent their nation. These 
birds are large enough, but they haven't got 



& f • e 8. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 299 

the eagle's noble character, and so this great 
majestic bird is taken as the symbol or sign 
of a nation's power. The eagle, like the lion, 
leads an almost solitary life. It scarcely ever 
associates with any of its kind, excepting 
with its mate and its young. He is a very 
dignified fellow; one that stays at home a 
good deal, and can not be trifled with. The 
word for eagle in the Hebrew means the bird 
that has powerful sight. One of the writers 
in the Jewish Talmud, or collection of wise 
sayings, declares that a griffin-eagle, or vul- 
ture, at Babylon could see its prey at Jerusa- 
lem. I can hardly believe this story, but it 
is a fact that they can see a great distance, 
and have a most wonderful eye. They can 
look straight up at the sun without blink- 
ing. This is something no other animal can 
do. This wonderful eagle-eye can change in 
a minute from having telescopic power, or 
power of seeing things at a great distance, 
to having microscopic power, or the power of 
seeing things which are very near. For in- 
stance, an eagle sees from some great height 



300 The Wicket-Gate. 

the body of a dead animal, and instantly 
swoops down upon it like an arrow from a 
bow. All this time he is using his telescopic 
powers; and yet, in a few seconds, when he 
is close to his prey, the whole form of the eye 
must be changed, or the bird would mistake 
its distance and be dashed to pieces on the 
ground. The eagles build their nests far up 
on mountain peaks where men would never 
dare to venture. 

There is a place up among the Franconia 
Mountains, close to the Profile House at the 
Notch, called "Eagle Cliff," where a number 
of eagles have their nests and can be seen 
sailing about in their grand way. From 
these high nests they take their young out 
to teach them how to fly, bearing them at 
first on their wings, until they are strong 
enough to fly for themselves. This is what 
the prophet Moses refers to when he says in 
the book of Deuteronomy, "For the Lord's 
portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of 
his inheritance. He found him in a desert 
land, and in the waste howling wilderness; 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 301 

he led liim about, he instructed him, he 
kept him as the apple of his eye. As an 
eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over 
her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, tak- 
eth them, beareth them on her wings; so 
the Lord alone did lead him, and there was 
no strange God with him." And then again, 
in the book of Exodus, he says: "Ye have 
seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how 
I bare you on eagle's wings and brought you 
unto myself. David says, " Thy youth is re- 
newed like the eagle's," and the prophet Isa- 
iah says, "Even the youths shall faint and 
be weary, and the young men shall utterly 
fall : but they that wait upon the Lord shall 
renew their strength; they shall mount up 
with wings as eagles; they shall run and not 
be weary, and they shall walk and not faint." 
And in the book of Job, where the Lord an- 
swered the poor forsaken Job, he says in 
one place, " Doth the eagle mount up at thy 
command, and make her nest on high? She 
dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the 
crag of the rock, and the strong place. From 



302 The Wicket-Gate. 

thence she seeketh the prey, and her eyes 
behold afar off. Her young ones also suck 
up blood: and where the slain are there is 
she." Altogether there are thirty places in 
the Bible where the eagles are mentioned. 
Altogether the eagle is a very wonderful 
bird; so that when we come to think of it, 
we will surely find that the face of the eagle 
will teach us some important lessons. Well, 
then, we find in the eagle two kinds of 
power. And these are: 

Power to weather the storms of the world ; 
and power to rise above the storms of the 
world. 



First, then, comes the eagle's power to 
weather the storms of the world. Did you 
ever think of what becomes of the birds in 
the winter-time? Some of them remain all 
through the winter in their own nests in the 
trees; some of them, like the little snow-birds, 
seem to enjoy it all, and they hop about in 
the snow, as much as to say, "The more 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 303 

snow the more fun." But, then, the greater 
part of them fly away to the South, as the 
swallows do, to get away from the storms and 
cold weather of winter-time. They fly away 
from the rough weather because they haven't 
power to stand it. This is the very best 
thing for them to do ; it is an instinct of their 
nature which teaches them to do this. 

Perhaps some of you remember that beauti- 
ful song, with the music by the German com- 
poser Abt, beginning — 

"When the swallows homeward fly." 

The wild ducks, too, all along our coast, 
fly south for the winter. They come along 
the coast in October and November, and fly 
away to the Gulf of Mexico and the south- 
ern waters, and then in the spring of the 
year they go back to the coasts of Labrador 
and Hudson's Bay, to lay their eggs and 
hatch their young. But the strong eagle 
never goes south for a milder climate. He 
stands the stormy weather and the wet and 
the cold. He clings to the crags of the 



304 The Wicket-Gate. 

mountain and makes his nest firm there, 
among the dwarfed and stumpy pines; and 
though it snows and hails and sleets up 
there, and though the piercing winds of win- 
ter blow and howl around the bleak moun- 
tain, the grand old eagle weathers the storms, 
and sails in his majestic spiral swoop, round 
and round, and yet up and up, towards the 
sun, looking it right in the eye, and poising 
on its strong and beating wing, as if it did 
not belong to the earth, but was above it all. 
And here it is that we learn our first les- 
son from the face of the eagle. God has put 
us into this world, where we are certain and 
sure to have storms and trouble. And we 
mustn't run away from the trials and troubles 
of life; we must learn to weather them; to 
be able to face them and let them do their 
worst on us, as the old bald-headed eagle 
does, when he ruffles his feathers in the 
mountain rain-storm and makes the best of 
it, and stretches out his grand old neck to 
see if he can discover any sign of the sun- 
shine. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 305 

You remember that hymn we sometimes 
sing — 

"We'll stand the storm, it won't be long, 
We'll anchor by and by." 

And we ought to try to practice these 
truths we sing, and not merely sing them 
with our lips. 

There are some people who try to run 
away from the world's care and trouble, 
by shutting themselves up from the world. 
They go into monasteries and convents and 
retreats, and are just like the birds that fly 
away to the South when the winter is com- 
ing on. 

Twelve hundred years ago, and after this 
from time to time in the history of the Chris- 
tian Church, there were people called her- 
mits, who lived in the rocks, and in cells and 
caves of the earth. Egypt and the East, and 
especially along the banks of the river Nile, 
swarmed with these hermits. Some of them 
would make vows not to speak to people, 
for fear they should commit sin ; others shut 



306 The Wicket-Gate. 

themselves up in caves and dens, and ate 
nothing but roots and berries. There was 
one hermit in Italy, named Benedict, who 
lived in a cave in the side of a rock, and 
systematically starved himself, until he bare- 
ly kept the breath in his body. Another one, 
*named Simon Stylites, lived on the top of a 
tower, and prayed all the time. Now these 
men were Christians: they thought they were 
doing God service, and were pleasing Christ 
by all this kind of life; but they were run- 
ning away from that very world in which 
God had placed them. They were not weath- 
ering the storms of the world, as the old 
eagle weathers them; they were simply fly- 
ing away from them, as the swallows fly 
away from the storms of winter. There's a 
certain hymn by Charles Wesley, that won- 
derful writer of hymns, that has a verse right 
to this point: 

"To the desert or the cell 
Let others blindly fly; 
In this evil world I dwell; 
Nor fear its enmity. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 307 

Here I find a house of prayer 
To which I inwardly retire, 

Walking, unconcerned in care 
And unconsumed in fire." 

It is right for us, my dear children, to be 
in the world, and enjoy its innocent pleas- 
ures as well as to suffer its sorrows. God 
has given us all this faculty for enjoyment: 
the ringing laugh, the sparkling eye, the 
sense of fun, and the love of mirth. Why 
even the animals have this. Who can look 
at a monkey or a frog without laughing? 
We have our pleasures as well as our sorrows, 
and God does not want us to run away from 
either of them. He wants us to enjoy the 
sunshine and to weather the storm, not to 
run away from either of them. 

It is these things which will develop us 
at last, and make us true men and women; 
for you know we can't be big, grown-up boys 
and girls, living at home with our parents, 
and having them do for us all the time. We 
can't sail in smooth water all the time; we 
must go out to sea in life some time, we 



308 The Wicket-Gate. 

must be built for rough weather. There are 
a great many people in the world who try- 
to run away from duty, just as the old 
hermits, I was telling you of, tried hard 
to run away from the sin in the world by 
running away from the world altogether. 
The prophet Jonah was one of these per- 
sons. He didn't want to go to Nineveh 
when God told him to go and preach there. 
So we read that "Jonah rose up to flee unto 
Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord, and 
went down to Joppa; and he found a ship 
going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof, 
and went down into it to go with them to 
Tarshish, from the presence of the Lord." 

Well, we all know the rest of the story, 
and what a hard time he had in trying to 
run away from duty, instead of standing by 
and weathering the storm. 

There was a young clergyman once, who 
had a parish where he was doing a great deal 
of good, and where the people loved him 
very much. One day, however, he sent in 
his resignation and left the place. The peo- 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 309 

pie tried all they could to get him to re- 
main. The bishop urged him not to go, but 
he insisted on leaving. And the reason he 
gave was that there was one queer old man, 
named Captain Crooks, with whom he could 
not get on. After this he changed churches 
six times, and at last, twenty years after- 
wards, came back to the first church he had. 
And he said, in explaining it to a young 
minister, 

" Don't run away from duty because there 
is trouble in the way. I found a Captain 
Crooks in all six of my churches ; he followed 
me wherever I went, and there was no use 
in trying to run away from him. He fol- 
lowed me like my own shadow." 

And this is all true. We must overcome 
our difficulties not by running away from 
them, but by standing our ground and meet- 
ing them. We must have the face of the 
eagle in our lives, and learn to weather the 
storms of the world. And we can get this 
power only in one way. We must pray for 
grace and strength to be able to resist temp- 



310 The Wicket-Gate. 

tation, so that we may be able to stand, in- 
stead of running away, every time we meet 
with any trouble. 

"Who comes there?" cried a French sen. 
tinel in the dark. 

There was no answer. 

" Who comes there ! " 

Still no reply. 

"Who comes there? Stand or give the 
countersign ! " and the lonely picket was 
relieved in the darkness to hear the well- 
known, familiar password which showed that 
it was a friend. Presently a muffled form 
approached, and the sentinel found that it 
was no less a person than General Bonaparte, 
the young French leader of the army in 
Italy. He had had some reason to doubt 
about certain of his sentinels, and so in the 
darkness and silence of the night he was go- 
ing the rounds, testing the strength and 
courage of the pickets. And that was the 
way that Napoleon Bonaparte received the 
name among his soldiers of "The Little 
Corporal." 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 311 

Well, my dear children, if we are trying to 
be God's faithful soldiers and servants unto 
our life's end, we are like sentinels in the 
dark. We can not see very much before us ; 
the light of the morning has not come yet, 
and it is required in us that we be found 
faithful. We must stand our ground, and 
face our duties, trials, and responsibilities; 
we will be traitors if we throw down our 
arms and fly. 

Power to weather the storms of the world. 
This is the first thing the face of the eagle 
teaches us. 



II. 



The second kind of power the face of the 
eagle teaches us is, power to rise above the 
storms of the world. 

The eagle can fly higher in the air, and 
can sustain itself longer on its strong and 
tireless wing, than any of the other birds. It 
never gets dizzy away up in its soaring. It 
is at home up there; and though at times it 



312 The Wicket-Gate. 

flies so very far away that we can not see it, 
still it knows that higher world perfectly 
well, and comes back from its flights to its 
old home in the rocks, just as surely and 
as safely as the swallows come back to their 
nests, after skimming along on the surface 
of the lake. And just in the same way, as 
if on eagles' wings, on the rising, beating 
stroke of faith and hope, the Christian ought 
to be able to rise up above the storms of 
the world higher than any other kind of 
man. 

In the old pictures of the Evangelists, as 
we have already seen, St. Matthew is always 
represented with a cherub or human face 
by his side, St. Mark with a lion, St. Luke 
with an ox, and St. John with an eagle. 
These are the same four laces of the cheru- 
bim which Ezekiel saw in his vision. It 
means that every form of life was in that 
eternal life which Jesus Christ our Saviour 
has given to us through the gospel; it means 
that the Evangelists represented to us every 
form of life in Jesus, and that in heaven, 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 313 

among all the angels and redeemed, all that 
was best and strongest in this life would be 
there. 

The reason why St. John is always repre- 
sented with an eagle is, simply because he 
soared higher up into the light and knowl- 
edge of God than the other disciples. He 
loved Jesus more than any of the others, and 
so it seemed to him as if his Saviour loved 
him more; and he was known as the disci- 
ple whom Jesus loved. And if we are true 
Christians and followers of God as true chil- 
dren, we ought to be able to get up into 
God's light, and away from the troubles of 
the world, just as the eagle gets up at times 
above the clouds: so that while it is rain- 
ing upon the poor little birds who fly low 
and keep near the earth, he, because of his 
power to rise above the storms of the world, 
goes wheeling about in his slow, grand way, 
where it is all sunshine. 

I suppose the little birds can't imagine 
what the eagle is up to when he goes off for 
a flight. No doubt they wonder and won- 



314 The Wicket-Gate. 

der how he lives up there and what he is 
about. 

Here is a fable in rhyme about an owl 
and an eagle: 

" The eagle thought to explore the skies, 
The owl vouchsafed him counsel wise : 
1 Give up this profitless waste of wing, 
Keep close to me, I'll teach you to sing. 
All creatures are sure to lose their senses, 
If they venture above the trees and fences : 
I knew of a foolhardy, crazy lark, 
Which flew away up and was lost in the dark. 
You can't go up any higher than I, 
Nothing to roost on ; fool to try ; 
You'll bump your head against the sky. 
Sit still till the horrible day is done, 
No one can see till the shade is on ; 
The sun is a cloud and the moon is a sun.' 
(The eagle sailing the upper sea, 
Did he hear his friend's soliloquy ?) 

" ' He has lost his hold! He floats in despair 
On the frightful space of the empty air! 
If a flash of darkness would let him see, 
He might find his way again back to me. 
But he's out of sight, aud therefore lost, 
And in the abyss by wild winds is tossed. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 315 

I told him better ! The rattle-brains 

Will find that liberty ends in chains. 

Had he sense enough to take advice, 

He might have been useful — catching mice. 

Do you hear him scream? 'Tis the cry of distress, 

As he gyrates downward; a pretty mess 

Will his carcass make as he strikes the stones ! 

But, never mind, I'll pick his bones ! " 

But the eagle wouldn't care for all this 
small talk from an owl in the dark; he lives 
in a higher world; he has other things to 
think of; he has a certain kind of power the 
owl hasn't got : it is the power to rise above 
the storms of the world. 

And this kind of power in the soul is what 
the Christian has got, and the man who isn't 
a Christian hasn't got. The Christian prays 
to God, and communes with his Saviour, 
and lives in the thoughts of heaven and the 
life everlasting. The man who don't believe 
in God, or the hereafter, and who doubts 
whether he has got any soul, is just like the 
owl in the dark. He wants to keep down on 
the roosts and fences, and grub about in the 



316 The Wicket-Gate. 

earth ; he doesn't rise one bit above the things 
of this world. Look at St. Paul and then 
look at the emperor Nero. The one lived 
far above the world, like the eagle, and the 
other lived down in the dark, like the 
owl. 

St. Paul .was not afraid of any thing: he 
faced angry mobs and crowds, and was in 
danger of death all the time ; but he said that 
none of these things moved him, and that he 
even did not count his life dear unto him, so 
that he finish his work for his divine Master 
with joy. When the crowd of angry Jews 
at Jerusalem tried to kill him, and had bound 
themselves by an oath not to eat or drink un- 
til they had done this thing, as he looked 
out upon that sea of upturned angry faces, 
breathing out threatenings and death against 
him, with the Roman soldiers having all they 
could do to keep him from being torn in 
pieces, — I tell you, my dear children, this 
man had the face of the eagle in his life, as 
he rose above it all and said, " What if they 
do kill my body; not one of them can touch 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 317 

my soul." And we read that that very night 
the Lord stood by him and said, " Be of good 
cheer, Paul; for as thou hast testified of me 
in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also 
at Rome." 

Do you suppose he was afraid of any thing 
when he felt that his Lord, who had been all 
through this same kind of persecution, was 
standing by him ? 

And then, see him again in the terrible 
storm they had in the Mediterranean. For 
fourteen days the ship was tossed up and 
down in the tempest, and the sailors and 
soldiers on board did not know what to do. 
Some of the cowardly sailors, or " shipmen," 
as St. Paul called them, tried to make off in 
the boats and desert the ship, as we have 
seen in a former sermon. And then St. 
Paul, though he was a prisoner bound with 
a chain, and on his way to the judgment-seat 
of the emperor Nero, stood up above them 
all, and cheered them all to be brave men, 
saying: "And now I exhort you to be of 
good cheer : for there shall be no loss of any 



318 The Wicket-Gate. 

man's life among you, but of the ship. For 
there stood by me this night the angel of 
God, whose I am and whom I serve, saying, 
fear not Paul; thou must be brought before 
Caesar: and lo, God hath given thee all them 
that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of 
good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall 
be even as it was told me." 

Didn't St. Paul have the face of an eagle 
at such times as these, when he rose up 
above all his companions, just as the eagle, 
king among birds, sweeps up into regions 
where no other birds can follow? 

Now look at the emperor Nero; the man 
before whom St. Paul was to stand and be 
tried. He didn't believe in any God, or any 
hereafter. He was a cruel-hearted wretch, 
and lived in constant fear of death. He 
burned Kome, and then played the violin 
while it was burning, and laid the blame of 
the conflagration upon the poor innocent 
Christians. He hated his own mother Ag- 
rippina, and sent her off on a pleasant yacht- 
ing excursion, and then gave secret orders to 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 319 

the sailors to sink the boat and drown her, 
because she was in his way. But he didn't 
succeed in this, for Agrippina didn't drown as 
easily as was expected, and managed some 
how to swim ashore. At last the legions of 
the Koman army became tired of Nero's cru- 
elties, and they raised a revolt, and bribed 
the slaves in the palace tt> kill him. Nero 
heard of it in some way and tried to escape. 
He ran out into the garden of his palace, and 
thought he was safely hidden in some of the 
bushes. But the slaves dragged him out, 
and while he crouched before them, and 
rolled on the ground, begging for his life, 
they held him and stabbed him to death, just 
as men kill a mad dog. No face of the eagle 
there ! No rising above the storms of the 
world there ! Oh what that wretched man 
would have given for something of that 
brave apostle's faith, the man Paul, whom he 
condemned to be put to death! 

Power to weather the storms of the world; 
power to rise above the storms of the world. 



320 The Wicket-Gate. 

These are the two kinds of power the face of 
the eagle teaches us. We will need them 
both in trying to serve Christ, and do our 
duty to him and to our fellow-men. We will 
need the first kind of power while we are liv- 
ing. We will need the second kind of power 
when the time comes for us to die. 

Dear children, pray to God to give you 
these two kinds of power : Power to resist 
evil. Power to rise above it. 

May you indeed "fight manfully against 
the world, the flesh, and the devil, and con- 
tinue Christ's faithful soldiers and servants 
unto your life's end! Amen." 



XII. 
No. 4.— THE FACE OF A MAN. 



THE FOURFACED CHERUBIM. 

IV. The Face of a Man. 

"The face of a man." — Ezektel i. 10. 



v 



'HIS is the fourth and last sermon about 

the wonderful cherubim. 
You know in that beautiful hymn of praise 
called the u Te Deum," beginning — 

•'We praise Thee, God; we acknowledge Thee to be 
the Lord," 

there are these words: 

"To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, 
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth." 

Now these cherubim and seraphim are 
wonderful living beings. But it is very 
doubtful if they are angels, as we under- 



324 The Wicket-Gate. 

stand that word. Angels are messengers, 
single-faced spirits, heavenly sons of God. 
But all through the Bible, from the cherubim 
with flaming swords who kept the gate of 
Eden, after Adam was driven from it, as de- 
scribed in the book of Genesis, all the way 
down to the "beasts," or "living creatures," 
which were before the throne of God as St. 
John describes them in the book of the Reve- 
lation, these cherubim are spoken of as won- 
derful living beings, with all forms of life in 
them; they are not angels, with only one 
face or form to them. 

We have seen three of these faces or forms 
of life: the face of a lion, the face of an ox, 
and the face of an eagle. To-day we come 
to the last of them all — the highest and the 
best — "The face of a man." 

The face of a man, then, shows us two 
kinds of knowledge, or two kinds of power, — 
for knowledge is power, — and these are: 

The poiuer of knowing ourselves, and the 
poiver of knowing God. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 325 



First of all, is this power of knowing 
ourselves. 

A looking-glass is a very wonderful thing. 
It shows us ourselves, and just the way we 
appear to others. There are some glasses 
which show us the back of our heads, and 
our side faces, so that we can see ourselves 
all the way round. But we forget how we 
appear to others; we don't remember what 
we are like. This is what St. James has in 
mind when he says: "If any be a hearer 
of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto 
a man beholding his natural face in a glass : 
for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, 
and straightway forgetteth what manner of 
man he was." 

I knew a gentleman, once, who hunted 
all over the house to find his spectacles. 
He looked in his table and desk, and all 
through the pockets of his different clothes, 
but couldn't find them in any place. At last 
he called his servant. 



326 The Wicket-Gate. 

"John," said he, "have you seen my glasses 
anywhere ? " 

"Yes," replied John, "I see them this very 
minute." 

"Where are they?" he inquired. 

" On your nose, sir," said John. 

Now, if that gentleman had only beheld 
himself once in the glass, if he had only 
had the power of knowing himself, if he 
had seen his own face, — the face of a man, 
— he would not have been compelled to hunt 
by the hour for his missing spectacles. 

How very few of us there are who really 
know what Ave are like. There is an old 
Greek motto which has come to us from 
the time of Plato, the great philosopher of 
Greece, containing these two short words: 
TVcoSi deavrov" "Know thyself." This is, 
a most important branch of knowledge, this 
knowing ourselves. You know there are 
some people who are called phrenologists: 
they believe that a person's character can 
be told by examining the bumps on his 
head. As you go into the office of a phre- 



The Fourfackd Cherubim. 327 

nologist you will see a bust of a human 
head, with all the different bumps marked 
on it, and underneath the head you will see 
this motto, "Know thyself." These phre- 
nologists think that people do not know 
themselves until they have had their heads 
examined and have received a character- 
book. 

When I was a boy in college I went to a 
phrenologist's office, and the man rubbed his 
fingers through my hair, and called out a lot 
of numbers, which a clerk put down in a 
book; and then, when I left, this book was 
given to me; and there were a great many 
things in it that were very true. One thing 
I remember was, that I didn't like mathemat- 
ics, and had no turn for all those hard prob- 
lems in algebra and geometry; and that was 
just like looking in the glass and seeing 
what manner of man I was. 

But there are a great many people in the 
world who never have any knowledge of 
themselves, even if they do go to a phrenol- 
ogist's and get a character-book. You know 



328 The Wicket-Gate. 

there are some old Scotch lines by the poet 
Burns, which read — 

"Oh wad some power the giftie gie us 
To see oursel's as others see us." 

These people think of themselves as they 
appear to themselves, not at all as they ap- 
pear to others. Sometimes, when boys go to 
school, and especially when they go away to 
boarding-school, they have a hard time in 
finding their proper places. I remember a 
boy at school who always tried to boss it 
over us little fellows by saying, " Don't you 

know who I am ? I am Mr. 's son ! " 

At last the other boys made up their minds 
they would stand it no longer, and they took 
him off in the woods, just as Indians carry 
off a captive to torture, and then they tied 
his feet and hands, and made a paddle out 
of a shingle, and gave him a terrible dressing 
down; and after that the big braggart found 
his place, and began to have the face of a 
man in his character. He began to know 
himself. 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 329 

Animals haven't got this power of know- 
ing themselves. A horse can tell another 
horse from a dog, or a cow, and yet he 
doesn't stop to think how it is that he is a 
horse. He don't know any thing abont his 
own nature. He knows he likes oats, and 
he knows he loves to roll in a field; but 
he doesn't stop to think that a horse is a 
common noun, or that his name is spelt, 
h — o — r — s — e, or how the sentence "I am a 
horse " is to be parsed. He has no power of 
knowing himself. 

A horse has the face, or the character, of 
a horse; and a dog has the face, or char- 
acter, of a dog: that is, they have all the 
powers which belong to horses and dogs; 
but they never can get the face, or the char- 
acter, of a man in their lives. They have 
nothing of this twofold knowledge which 
man has, this power of knowing ourselves, 
and this power of knowing God. 

And this power, — this face of a man in 
our lives, — comes to us slowly and by de- 
grees. We are not born with it all at once. 



330 The Wicket-Gate. 

Look, for instance, at a little baby. It 
knows nothing at all when it is born. But 
as it grows up to be a little child it begins 
to learn things. It picks up words ; then the 
child knows father and mother and nurse 
and doctor, long before it can spell these 
words, or parse in grammar the sentences 
it speaks. All this knowledge comes after- 
wards. It don't have to wait until it knows 
every thing about itself, before it begins to 
love those about it, or know right from 
wrong. Solomon says, "Even a child is 
known by its doings," — long before it can 
understand all about those doings. But by 
and by this knowledge comes, and then the 
face of the man appears, with its knowledge 
of itself and with its knowledge of God. 

What is it then truly to know ourselves? 

Well, it means a great many things. First 
we learn about our wonderful body, this 
strange house of flesh and bone that we 
live in. We learn, or ought to learn, the 
laws of health: how to dress ourselves right- 
ly in summer and winter, what to eat, and 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 331 

how to keep well. Then we have the whole 
world to learn about, and how it is that we 
are inhabitants of the world. Then we have 
our mind to train up in the right way, so as 
to let it learn how to think and work rightly. 
The understanding is like the foundation of 
the house, and the memory is like the walls ; 
and looking out upon life for ourselves, is 
like the windows of the house. Then we 
have to learn about another side to our na- 
ture, — the moral side. We ought to know 
right from wrong when we see them, just as 
we can tell a bird from a snake. We ought 
to feel our cheeks burn red with shame when 
we do any thing wrong, or mean, or selfish. 
That is God's hand in our blood which reddens 
it so. It is the conscience that keeps the 
score when we do right and when we do 
wrong, and calls out like a scorer on a base- 
ball field, "Eight ! Wrong ! " 

And above all these, — above the mind, and 
the moral sense, — you and I have a soul, — - 
an immortal spirit, — something that will not 
die at death, but will live beyond ; something 



332 The Wicket-Gate. 

which we ought to preserve from sin and 
evil; something which Jesus came to save. 

So you see, after all, we are like this won- 
derful cherubim itself. We have four faces, 
or sides, to our being: the face, or the side, 
of the body; the side of the mind; the side 
of the moral sense, and the side of the im- 
mortal spirit. And so, too, we are four-sided, 
and are very much like this cherubim after 
all. The face of the man, then, is very far 
above the other faces which we have been 
talking about, because we read in the book 
of Genesis that man was made in the image 
of God, and none of the other living crea- 
tures were made after this likeness. 

When we are little children we love to see 
and be with animals. We love to talk about 
them, and have picture-books with animals 
in them, and play with menageries and 
farms. It seems as if we belong to them 
and they to us; as if we were all brothers 
and sisters. How a boy loves his pigeons 
and rabbits and guinea pigs, and the funny 
little puppies that tumble about so, and try 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 333 

to bite before they have any teeth, and put 
on such big airs ! How a little girl loves her 
little kittens ! How she mauls them, and 
picks the old mother cat up any how, just as 
you pick up a pillow, in any place where it is 
soft ! And all this natural love of animals 
comes out of our animal life. When we are 
little we haven't got the face of the man de- 
veloped within us, we haven't come to our 
full power, and therefore the life that the 
animals lead seems to be our life, and we feel 
that we are one with them. 

But the power of truly knowing ourselves 
consists in something more than finding out 
how much better our nature is than that of 
the animal world. We may know all about 
our bodies: all about the world we live in, 
and the laws by which it is governed. We 
may know all about our own minds, and be 
able to explain just how it is that we exist 
as living beings, and yet we may never know 
ourselves as God knows us: for we are told 
that " man looketh upon the outward appear- 
ance, but the Lord looketh upon the heart." 



334 The Wicket-Gate. 

There is something wrong in the soul; 
there is a hidden fire there that bursts out 
from time to time into a flame ; there is a dis- 
ease in the soul that is called sin; and sin in 
the soul makes us sinners, just as sickness in 
the body makes us sick. A man who is sick 
must know that he is sick, before he can take 
any thing that will make him well. And 
we, my dear children, must find out that we 
are sinners, before we can truly know our- 
selves, or can know God, or his great medi- 
cine for us. And to have the face of a man 
and know ourselves truly, we must find out 
that we need a Saviour; and when we have 
found this out, we are ready for the second 
kind of knowledge which this face of a man 
teaches us. 

II. 

Power of knowing God, is the other kind 
of power the face of a man has. The ani- 
mals, as we have seen, know very little about 
themselves or about the world they live in. 
They know when they are hungry, and some 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 335 

of them have a great deal of instinct, as it is 
called, or the power of knowing what to do 
to bring up their young and take care of 
themselves. The beavers know how to build 
dams and make their houses by the water- 
side. Birds know how to build their nests, 
and hens know that they must sit on their 
eggs and keep them warm, if they want to 
have a brood of little chickens. They don't 
have to go to school, or college, to learn these 
things. The great Creator has given them 
all this knowledge. We call it instinct. But 
that is the end of it. They have no sense of 
sin, excepting as trained animals are taught 
that they will be whipped unless they do as 
they are told. 

There was a little fellow once who had 
some canary-birds, which were great pets. 
He used to watch them a great deal, and 
would let them out to fly about the room, 
and they would come on his finger and eat 
hemp-seed out of his mouth. One day, after 
he had been watching them drink out of 
their trough, he said to his mother, 



336 The Wicket-Gate. 

"Mother, don't you think my canary-birds 
will surely go to heaven when they die?" 

" Why, my dear ? " replied his mother. 
"What makes you think that they will?" 

"Oh," said the little fellow, "because they 
are so pious, mother. I never saw any birds 
that were so religious." 

"Pious!" she said, "pious birds! What do 
they do that is pious?" 

"Oh, mother," he answered, "you ought 
to see them when they drink. Every time 
they put their beaks down into the water, 
they lift their heads up and look right up 
into the sky, as much as to say, 'For what 
we have received, oh Lord, make us truly 
thankful.' They do it every time, and I 
think they really do say grace to themselves 
every time they drink. Yes, mother, I am 
sure my birds are pious, for they look as if 
they returned thanks to God, just as father 
does before soup." 

This was a pretty thought that the little 
boy had about his birds. But these birds 
had only the face, or the character, of the 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 337 

birds in their nature; they didn't have the 
face of a man, with its power of knowing 
God. 

But how do we know God? how do we 
feel him? What does it all mean? 

Let us see. We have never seen God, and 
yet among all the races of the earth, among 
all the nations that have been and are to-day, 
we find this universal belief in God. And 
even those people who are heathen and have 
no knowledge of the true God, yet have made 
for themselves idols or images of God, as we 
say in that hymn by Bishop Heber, 

" The heathen in their blindness 
Bow down to wood and stone." 

But we, who are Christians, have no idols 
or images of God. The second command- 
ment tells us we are not to make to our- 
selves graven images, and are not to worship 
them, as in any way representing God to us. 

We come to God through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, our Saviour, who came in our flesh; 
and thus when we think of him, or see him, 
22 



338 The Wicket-Gate. 

in our mind's eye, Ave think of God and see 
God. 

We read in the first chapter of St. John's 
gospel, at the eighteenth verse, these words : 
"No man hath seen God at any time; the 
only begotten Son, which is in the bosom 
of the Father, he hath declared him." 

When he was upon Mount Sinai Moses 
asked God to show him his glory. But we 
are told that God said to him that he could 
not see his full glory and live. And then 
God revealed something of his presence to 
his servant, and the face of Moses shone 
with the brightness of the place. 

And when Jesus was upon earth, one of 
the disciples said unto him, " Lord show us 
the Father, and it sufficeth us." That is, he 
meant to say, show us something of God in 
his glory in heaven and we won't ask for 
any thing more; that will do; then we will 
be sure to believe. And then our Lord re- 
plied by saying, " Have I been so long time 
with you, and yet hast thou not known me, 
Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 339 

the Father; and how sayest thou then, show 
us the Father." That is, Jesus meant to tell 
his disciples that they couldn't see God with 
the eyes of their body; but they could see 
him who was God in the flesh, God who be- 
came man. 

For instance, look at a thunder storm. 
You hear the thunder rolling in the heav- 
ens, you feel the air growing cold, you see 
the sky growing dark; there seems to be 
a silence, when, all of a sudden, a crash 
comes, and the lightning flashes through 
the clouds, and strikes some old oak-tree. 
But the electric fluid which caused that 
lightning was up in the clouds all the 
time. It didn't come merely when the 
lightning came, it was there before; but 
the lightning revealed the electricity, it de- 
clared that which already was in the bos- 
om of the clouds. So God revealed himself 
amid the thunders of Mount Sinai, when 
he gave the Jewish people their law. That 
was a visible manifestation of God's power. 
Again he revealed himself, again the light- 



340 The Wicket-Gate. 

ning was seen, when Jesus, a£ his baptism, 
was declared to be the only son in whom 
God the Father was well pleased. Again the 
lightning was seen, at the day of Pentecost, 
when there appeared cloven tongues, as of 
fire, upon the heads of the apostles, and the 
place in which they were sitting was filled 
with the clouds of God's glory. 

You know in St. John's gospel he begins 
by telling us that Jesus Christ was the Word 
of God. " In the beginning was the Word, 
and the Word was with God, and the Word 
was God." 

Just think for a moment what a word is ! 

A class in school were gathered together, 
once, around the teachers desk. She had 
lost the key of her money -drawer. Some 
one either had taken it, or knew where it 
was. Every boy and girl must say yes, or 
no; must tell a lie, or tell the truth. That 
teacher and the other boys and girls did not 
know what thoughts were in the minds of 
that class standing up before the desk. Each 
scholar might have falsehood or truth in his 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 341 

mind. No one could tell what the thoughts 
were, until the word yes, or no, was spoken, 
and then the word revealed the mind. And 
words always reveal our thoughts; they are 
our thoughts spoken out to the world. 

And so St. John says that Jesus is the 
word of God. He is God's thought, seen in 
the world; he reveals the mind of God: for 
God is truth, God is love, and Jesus Christ is 
the revelation of God's truth and love. Jesus 
is the spoken word "yes" to God's thoughts 
of love for us. 

My dear children, we may be able to know 
God in many ways. 

First of all, we can see God in his works. 
You remember in the story of Robinson Cru- 
soe, how, one day, while he was roaming over 
his island with his parrot on his shoulder and 
his big umbrella over him, all of a sudden, 
there, right before him on the sand, was the 
print of a human foot. What did that mean? 
what did that prove ? of what was that the 
evidence ? Why it proved to him that some- 
body else was on his desert island; that he 



342 The Wicket-Gate. 

was not alone there. And you know in a 
little while after he found poor Friday. 

Now, suppose Robinson had found, a little 
further on, a compass and a barometer on the 
sand. How did these come there? 

" Oh," says Friday, " I guess they just hap- 
pened to come there ; they dropped from 
some of the clouds, or perhaps they grew 
there." 

"No," says Robinson, "that's all nonsense; 
they were made; they were designed by a 
man ; don't you see all the wheels and screws 
and pivots; some workman planned them, 
and made them in a shop, and they've been 
washed ashore from some sinking ship." 

Well, my dear children, we are just like 
Robinson and Friday on the sand. We see 
marks of a divine hand, footprints of some 
great power here in the world. The blue 
sky, the green grass, summer and winter, 
coal and food, water and air, fire and storm, 
sun and moon, oceans and seas, cattle and 
living things, — all show us the marks of de- 
sign. They were created for a purpose, as 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 343 

the compass and barometer were made in a 
shop; they didn't merely happen to come 
here in this world from some unknown cause, 
or grow up out of nothing, as Friday said the 
compass grew up out of the beach. 

And this knowledge of God which comes 
from looking at his works, is what Shadrach, 
Meshach, and Abed-nego had, when they 
sang in the midst of the fiery furnace that 
chant called the " Benedicite," which we sing 
sometimes in our churches. "0 all ye works 
of the Lord, bless ye the Lord; praise him, 
and magnify him forever: 

" ye stars of heaven, oh ye winds of God, 
oh ye mountains and hills, bless ye the Lord; 
praise him, and magnify him forever." 

Then we know God again by the con- 
science within us. If you have ever been 
up in an organ-loft, and have spen a man 
blow the organ there, you will find a lit- 
tle piece of wood that slides up and down 
a groove. It is called a "telltale." It is 
connected with the bellows by a string, and 
it goes up and down with the bellows, and 



344 The Wicket-Gate. 

tells the blower when he can stop blowing, 
and when he must go on again. So there is 
something within us which is like this tell- 
tale. Something speaks out when we do 
right and says "yes"; and something speaks 
out and says " no," when we do wrong. St. 
Paul says, in one place, that the law of God 
is written in the heart; just as you can write 
your name in the sand on the beach with a 
sharp stick. This conscience that we have 
is like the thermometer : it tells us how warm 
or how cold our sense of duty is. It is like 
the barometer in the cabin of a ship : it will 
tell us when the sky is clear, and when a 
storm is coming. 

And then, last of all, we know God by 
the written word which he has given us, the 
revelation of his will from heaven. " Search 
the Scriptures," said Jesus once to the Jews, 
"for these are they which testify of me." 
This Bible is the word of life. It is the rec- 
ord of holy men, who spake as they were 
moved by the Spirit of God. It all points to 



The Fourfaced Cherubim. 345 

Jesus Christ as the central fact and hope of 
the world, and tells us the Son of man came 
to seek and to save that which was lost. 

And thus, by the world of nature, and by 
our conscience, and by the Word of God, 
with its revelation of Jesus Christ, Ave are 
able to have this wonderful face of a man 
in our lives, and are able to know God. 

Poicer of knoicing ourselves. 

Power of knoiving God. 

These are the two kinds of power the face 
of a man teaches us. 

When we know ourselves best, then we 
will feel that we are weak and sinful; and 
when we truly know God, we will know that 
he is strong, and that he is made for us to 
rest our souls upon him. 

Thank God, then, my dear children, that 
you have got this wonderful face of a man 
in your characters. 

The face of a lion taught us the lessons 
of activity and courage; the face of the ox 
taught us the power of doing and of suffer- 



346 The Wicket-Gate. 

ing ; the face of the eagle taught us the les- 
son of weathering the storms of the world 
and of getting above the storms of the world; 
but the face of a man, crowning all the other 
faces of this wonderful thing of life, — this 
mysterious cherubim, — is better than all the 
others, as it teaches us that we have the 
power of knowing ourselves, and the power 
of knowing God. 

Pray to God, then, that he may teach you 
truly to know your own heart, that you may 
know both yourself and Christ your Saviour. 

For, as St. John says in closing his first 
epistle, "We know that the Son of God is 
come, and hath given us an understanding, 
that we may know him that is true ; and we 
are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus 
Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 
Little children, keep yourselves from idols. 
Amen." 



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